College students with ADHD tend to struggle with their academic performance and are less likely to graduate college than their neurotypical peers. Emotion dysregulation, a common symptom of ADHD, can cause significant functional impairment throughout life. Acute exercise improves ADHD symptom severity, yet medication is the first line of treatment. Less is understood about the effectiveness of habitual exercise or ADHD medication on emotion dysregulation and quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the relationship between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL in college students with ADHD, and the possible moderating effects of ADHD medication. A sample of 53 participants completed a Qualtrics survey that included items on recent exercise, emotion regulation strategies, medication status, and QoL. A subset of participants (n=6) also completed a semi-structured interview. A moderated mediation model of linear regression was used to examine the relationships between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL, and explore the moderating effects of ADHD medication. A 6-step thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Results found a positive main effect of habitual exercise on expression suppression, (p=0.007). Greater use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with greater QoL (p=0.02). There was a stronger association between habitual exercise and cognitive reappraisal in participants taking ADHD medication (p=0.006), than those who were not taking ADHD medication (p=0.942). Medication status did not show a moderating effect. Qualitative analysis identified primary themes of both ADHD-related exercise benefits (increased focus, reduced hyperactivity, improved emotion regulation), and non-ADHD related exercise benefits (feelings of accomplishment, elevated mood, coping mechanism, improved health and fitness). Although further research is necessary, habitual exercise in conjunction with ADHD medication may be an effective treatment for emotion dysregulation associated with ADHD.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd2023-1126 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Creators | LeDoyen, Greta |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024 |
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