Information regarding symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in adolescence is much less prevalent than information about symptoms of this disorder in childhood. Comorbid conditions of ADD such as substance abuse, depression, paranoia and conduct disorder have only been marginally addressed in the literature. Furthermore, these areas, when addressed, have typically been studied in clinical populations referred to practitioners because of severe problems in the home, school or community. It is therefore likely that clinical populations may not represent the incidence of symptoms of ADD and existing comorbid conditions that might be found in non-clinical populations. The present study constituted an examination of symptoms of ADD, substance abuse, and comorbid conditions in a nonreferred adolescent population. Subjects were from a freshman class in a rural mountain area. The 118 subjects that participated in this study were given the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Adolescent Version (MMPI-A) and the Brown ADD Scales. Subjects were chosen randomly from the first 20 subjects who evidenced elevated symptoms of ADD as indicated on the Brown ADD Scales. An additional 20 subjects who did not have elevated symptoms of ADD were randomly chosen as the control population. The comorbid constellation of symptoms addressed in this study were substance abuse, depression, paranoia and conduct disorder. The results indicated that symptoms of ADD were significantly associated with substance abuse, depression and paranoia in this non-clinical population. Of interest was that Conduct Disorder was not found to be significantly associated with ADD, in this “normal population” although it has been associated with ADD in referred clinical populations. This may point to an important difference in this regard between the general population and those referred for clinical services.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-3440 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Creators | Price-Sharps, Jana Leigh |
| Publisher | Scholarly Commons |
| Source Sets | University of the Pacific |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations |
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