Maternal ADHD Symptoms, Personality, and Parenting Stress: Differences Between Mothers of Children With ADHD and Mothers of Comparison Children.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

Mothers raising a child with ADHD can experience high parenting stress. We evaluated if mothers' personality traits and own ADHD symptoms could also affect parenting stress.

METHOD:

430 biological mothers from the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA mothers) and 237 of a local normative comparison group (LNCG mothers) were evaluated at baseline. Interactions were tested between mothers' group and maternal personality/ADHD symptoms related to parenting stress.

RESULTS:

Compared to LNCG, MTA mothers had higher parenting stress, self-reported ADHD, neuroticism, and lower conscientiousness and agreeableness. When personality and ADHD were evaluated together, ADHD symptoms interacted with mothers' group: high maternal ADHD was positively associated with parenting stress for LNCG but not MTA mothers.

CONCLUSION:

Personality traits or ADHD characteristics do not appear operative for the high parenting stress of mothers of a child with ADHD. However, high maternal ADHD or low conscientiousness are associated with stress levels similar to raising a child with ADHD.

• Authors: Guillermo Perez Algorta, Carolyn A Kragh, L Eugene Arnold, Brooke S G Molina, Stephen P Hinshaw, James M Swanson, Lily Hechtman, LaRae M Copley, Matthew Lowe, Peter S Jensen
• Journal: Journal of attention disorders (J Atten Disord) Vol. 22 Issue 13 Pg. 1266-1277 (11 2018) ISSN: 1557-1246 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 25525155 (Publication Type: Comparative Study, Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.)

Topics

• Adult
• Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (diagnosis)
• Child
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Mother-Child Relations
• Mothers (psychology)
• Parenting
• Personality
• Personality Disorders
• Stress, Psychological