The Prediction of Children's Accident Proneness Based on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms: The Mediating Role of Sensitivity to Reward and Punishment

Accidents, both intentional and unintentional, are one of the leading causes of death and disability for children around the world and impose a heavy financial burden on the health care system of societies. The aim of the present study was to predict the children's accident proneness based on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sluggish cognitive tempo symptoms by mediating role of sensitivity to reward and punishment.

The research is descriptive and correlational. The statistical population included all elementary students of Tabriz city in the academic year of 2019-2020. For sampling, 200 students were chosen by random multistage cluster sampling method. Data were collected using Child Behavior Rating Scale (Swanson, Nolan, Pelham & 1980), Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Questioner (Penny, Waschbusch, Klein, Corkum & Eskes, 2009), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez, 2002), and Minor Injury Severity Scale (Peterson, saldana & hiblum, 1996). Data analysis was performed by path analysis using SPSS20 and AMOS 24 software.

The findings show that with increasing symptoms of attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder and decreasing symptoms of sluggish cognitive tempo, the rate of accident proneness among children, increases. Also, sensitivity to reward and punishment are able to mediate the relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sluggish cognitive tempo with accident proneness (p<0.05).

Based on these findings, it can be concluded that high sensitivity to punishment, protects children from accident proneness, because an accident is a form of punishment, and children with a high degree of sluggish cognitive tempo due to their high sensitivity to punishment, do not engage in dangerous and risky activities, so they are less likely to be injured. While children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are always at risk because of their high sensitivity to rewards, so they are more likely to be injured.