Association between social ability deficiency and core symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the characteristic of social ability in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its relationship with core symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems.Methods:Fifty-nine children with ADHD aged 6-13 for outpatient department from June 2019 to June 2021 were selected as the ADHD group, and 62 normal children matched in age and sex were recruited as the typical development group(TD group). The social responsiveness scale (SRS), SNAP-Ⅳ rating scale and strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) were used to evaluate the social ability, core symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems of the subjects.SPSS 26.0 was used for statistical analysis.Non parametric test was used to compare and analyze the differences in social ability, emotional and behavioral problems between the two groups.Spearman correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between social ability and core symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems of ADHD group.Generalized linear regression was used to analyze the impact of gender, age, IQ, core symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems of ADHD group on social ability.Results:In the ADHD group, the total score of SRS (65(42, 83)), social perception (10 (8, 13)), social cognition (13 (9, 19)), social communication (19 (11, 29)), and autism like behavior (9 (5, 14)) were significantly higher than those of TD group(38 (27.5, 59.5), 7 (4, 12.5), 8 (6, 15), 12 (6.5, 20), 4 (2, 11)) ( Z=-2.97, -2.75, -2.41, -3.01, -2.64, all P<0.05) .The total score of SDQ difficulty, influence factors, mood, hyperactivity, conduct and peer interaction were significantly higher than those of TD group ( Z=-5.80, -6.89, -2.82, -8.59, -2.52, -3.81, all P<0.05). The total score of SRS and the scores of each subscale in ADHD group were positively correlated with the total score of SNAP -Ⅳ and the scores of each subscale ( r=0.33-0.71, all P<0.05). The total score of SRS and the score of social communication scale were positively correlated with the total score of SDQ difficulty, influencing factors, emotion, hyperactivity, conduct and peer interaction subscale ( r=0.29-0.65, all P<0.05). Social perception was positively correlated with the total score of difficulty, hyperactivity and the scores of peer interaction subscale ( r=0.56, 0.32, 0.45, all P<0.05). The scores of social cognition and autism like behavior subscale were positively correlated with the total scores of difficulty, influencing factors, emotion and peer interaction subscale ( r=0.27-0.55, all P<0.05). The scores of social motivation subscale were positively correlated with the total scores of difficulty, emotion, hyperactivity, conduct and peer interaction subscale ( r=0.29-0.55, all P<0.05). The total score of SRS and the scores of each subscale were negatively correlated with the scores of prosocial behavior subscale ( r=-0.63--0.49, all P<0.05). The total score of SRS was positively affected by gender, age, opposites and disobedience, emotion, hyperactivity and peer interaction ( B=0.05-0.23, all P<0.05), and negatively affected by the prosocial behavior subscale ( B=-0.07, P<0.05). Conclusion:ADHD children often have obvious social ability defects, which are clearly related to core symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems.The risk factors are opposition and disobedience, emotions and peer relationships, and the protective factor is prosocial behaviors.