The effectiveness of drug therapy on executive functions, behavioral problems and clinical symptoms of attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is one of the most common and challenging disorders in childhood and adolescence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of drug therapy on executive functions, behavioral problems and clinical symptoms of attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder.

This experimental study was performed by measuring quarterly follow-up with two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). Participants were matched by Purposive sampling method based on their level of intelligence and type of disorder. The psychotherapy group received medication daily for 12 weeks. Participants were assessed using the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham Fourth Edition Scale to assess the clinical signs of ADHD, the College Neuropsychological Test to assess executive function, and the Rutterform Behavioral Problems Self-Report Scale. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) has been used to test the research hypotheses.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in all post-test variables of executive functions, behavioral problems and clinical symptoms and their components (P≤0.05).

According to the results, it seems that drug therapy is an effective intervention to treat the mentioned variables.