THE EFFECT OF ADHD CHILD MOTHER'S DEPRESSIVE MOOD, PARENTING STRESS, AND PARENTING RELATED ATTITUDE ON PARENTING BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Summary：This study was designed to examine the effect of mother's depressive mood and parenting related attitude on parenting behavior, focusing on the cases having an ADHD child. Method：A total of 82 parents, 31 parents having children with ADHD and 51 normal, were involved in this study. The children of ADHD and normal group were 6-11 years old. ADHD group were diagnosed as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder by psychiatric doctor and psychological evaluations using DSMIV criteria and the normal group were excluded by using Diagnostic Rating Scale-Parent, Teacher Form. The mothers of both group completed a series of questionnaire about mother's depressive mood and parenting-related attitude. To investigate the relationships between each variables, Student's t-test, correlation, stepwise regression, and hierarchical regression analysis were performed. Result：In correlation analysis, Mothers with an ADHD child were likely to report more coercive parenting behavior, more negative parenting-related attitudes, and depressive mood than normal group. In regression analysis, mother's parenting stress, dysfunctional thoughts, parenting competence, and depressive mood predicted coercive parenting behavior significantly, total explaining 50% of its variance, and especially depressive mood explained 29% of their coercive parenting behavior. These Results indicated that mother's depressive mood accounted for a substantial portion of coercive parenting behavior. Conclusion：These findings suggested that it is significantly important to reduce Mother's depressive mood through dealing with parenting sense of competence and dysfunctional thoughts, so, both parent education program and cognitive-behavioral therapeutic approach are needed to change parent's coercive parenting behavior. Finally, limitation of the present study and suggestions were discussed for further studies.