1) This study was carried out to investigate relationships among depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems in adults with ADHD tendency, and to explore several sub-clusters within the ADHD group, and to compare the differences among the sub-c ...
1) This study was carried out to investigate relationships among depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems in adults with ADHD tendency, and to explore several sub-clusters within the ADHD group, and to compare the differences among the sub-clusters. To accomplish these purposes, we 1) classified participants into ADHD tendency and normal groups using Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scale-Korean(CAARS-K), and compared the group difference in child and adult ADHD subscale, depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems, 2) examined relationships among these scales using correlation, factor and multiple regression/correlation analyses, 3) identified several sub-clusters within the ADHD group using a K-means Cluster Analysis with depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problem scales, and compared the differences among subgroups in several aspects. The results indicated that 1) participants with ADHD tendency showed prominent problems in depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems, 2) the cluster analysis revealed three sub-clusters (externalization, internalization and adaptation). Results of ANOVA with these subgroups indicated that the internalization sub-cluster showed the characteristic of elevated depression, lowered self-esteem, and social withdrawal and coldness, whereas the externalization sub-cluster showed more aggression, control-dominance and over-intervention.
2)This study developed three web-based neuropsychological experiments to examine attention deficits in adults with ADHD. Specifically, we carried out inhibition of return(IOR), stroop, and endogenous- exogenous attention tasks to extract amount of IOR, stroop interference, and endogenous-exogenous cue effects. Then, we identified indices showing high correlations with ADHD symptom scales, and compared these indices of ADHD group with control group. As results, IOR and endogenous cue effects were highly correlated DSM-ADHD scale. In addition, we carried a discriminant function analysis with seven experimental indices to examine whether these indices can successfully discriminate ADHDs from normal control group. Result showed 100% of the cases were correctly classified when all the 20 indeices were used. With 8 selected indices, 95.7% of the cases were correctly classified as predicted. Finally, we discussed differences among tests used in this research and conventional tests.