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Long‐term relationships between symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and self‐esteem in a prospective longitudinal study of twins
Author(s) -
Edbom Tobias,
Lichtenstein Paul,
Granlund Mats,
Larsson JanOlov
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2006.tb02311.x
Subject(s) - medicine , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , longitudinal study , cohort , cohort study , population , prospective cohort study , attention deficit , self esteem , clinical psychology , pediatrics , psychiatry , demography , surgery , environmental health , pathology , sociology
Aim: To study the long‐term relationship between symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the developing self‐esteem in a population‐based sample of twins. Methods: The cohort is all twin pair families born in Sweden between May 1985 and December 1986 (n = 1.480). Wave 1 took place in 1994 when the twins were 8 years old and wave 2 in 1999 when the children were 13 years old. In wave 1 and 2 the parents completed questionnaires regarding ADHD‐symptoms about their children. In wave 2 the twins completed a questionnaire about self‐esteem and Youth Self Report (YSR). ADHD‐symptoms and self‐esteem were analyzed in the total study group. Results: There was a long‐term relationship between high scores of parental‐reported ADHD‐symptoms at 8 and 13 years of age and low scores in measures of self‐reported self‐esteem at 13 years of age. In the cotwin control method controlling for YSR internalizing problem, paired comparisons within the twin pairs revealed that a high score of ADHD‐symptoms at age 8 was related to significantly lower scores at age 13 in the self‐esteem. Conclusions: The long‐term relationships between ADHD‐symptoms and a low self‐esteem in a population‐based sample were confirmed by the co‐twin analyses.