Effect of Mother's Emotion Regulation Strategies Training on the Symptoms of Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as the most common behavioral disorder of childhood, can affect all aspects of a child’s life and their families. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of mother's emotion regulation strategies training on the symptoms of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
We conducted a quasi-study among mothers with ADHD children (ranged age between 4 and 12 years) in the pediatric clinic of Ibn-e-Sina psychiatric hospital, affiliated to the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Forty-four eligible mothers were randomly allocated to one of two parallel groups; the intervention group (n = 22) was trained for the emotion regulation (eight 90-minute sessions), and control group (n = 22). The Conner’s Parents Rating Scales-Revised Short version (CPRS-R: S) was administered to assess symptoms of ADHD children by mothers. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 16.0).
The mean value of mothers’ age was 34.7 ± 4.1 years in intervention group and 37.2 ± 6.4 years in control group. The results of independent t-test revealed no significant difference in mean of hyperactivity scores between the two groups before intervention (P>0.05), and a significant difference immediately and one month after the intervention (P Finding of this study showed that mother's emotion regulation strategies training can be effective in reducing hyperactivity scores in children with ADHD.