Maadmanee Veeranarong. Causal attribution of improving behavior among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and parental compliance . Master's Degree(Health Social Science). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2005.
Causal attribution of improving behavior among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and parental compliance
Abstract:
This study was designed based on the attribution theory of the covariation principle. It
aimed to explore parents’ compliance behaviour in the treatment of their ADHD children, and
to examine patterns of attribution criteria in attribution of ADHD children’s improving
behaviour among the parents, together with to investigate parents’ attribution regarding their
compliance in causing their ADHD child’s improving behaviour. The data was collected from
the parents of children aged 6 to 12 years with ADHD and who had been brought to the clinic
of the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient unit of King Chulalongkorn Memorial
Hospital. A total of 91 respondents were interviewed to obtain the data. Univariate and
bivariate statistics were used for analyzing of the data.
The findings of this study show that the parents were likely to comply with treatment
of ADHD children and 37.4% of them attributed their ADHD children’s behaviour outcome to
medication, 33.0% of them attributed to caregiver’s attention, and 29.6% of them attributed to
ADHD children’s maturity.
From the classification of the attribution due to the three covariation principle criteria,
it was found that more than half of the parents had used of high consensus, high consistency,
and high distinctiveness. Moreover by using simple regresssion analysis, the results revealed
that consensus was positively related to all aspects of the parents’ compliance, and it could
predict 68.9 % for total compliance. Consistency was positively related to the parents’
compliance with medication prescribed, compliance with behaviour modification, and total
compliance but not related to compliance with treatment follow-up. However, consistency
could predict 39.2 % of total compliance. For Distinctiveness, it was negatively related to the
parents’ compliance in all aspects. Nevertheless, it can predicted 22.9 % of total compliance.
These findings suggest the importance of the parents’ attribution in affecting their
compliance behavior in treatment of ADHD children. Therefore, taking action to the parents,
such as providing group interaction about attention to ADHD children (consensus), promotion
of persistence in compliance behaviour (consistency), together with making their attentions to
internal factors, for making their appropriate perception towards the causes of ADHD
children’s improvement (distinctiveness), should be considered in order to improve their
compliance behaviour