Evaluation of mood and behavior, in primary school children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during the outbreak of COVID-19: A qualitative study

Subject Areas : Child

zeinab norouzi zad ¹ , marjan torkzadeh ² , Alireza bakhshayesh ³

1 - General Psychology, Yazd University, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.
2 - General Psychology, Yazd University, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.
3 - Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.

Received: 2021-10-01 Accepted : 2022-01-25 Published : 2023-08-23

Keywords: primary school, Mood, Hyperactive children, COVID-19, behavioral conditions,

Abstract :

With the Coronavirus outbreak, closure of schools and the restriction of children to the house, several challenges have been encountered due to fewer possibilities of releasing excitement, playing, entertainment and limited use of therapeutic and hygienic facilities. Loss of daily routine life and social interaction can act as potentially dangerous factors in regards with mental health problems, and exacerbate ADHD symptoms. Due to the significance of this matter, the goal of this study was to examine the behavioral, communicational, and environmental conditions in primary school children with ADHD during the Covid-19 outbreak. This project was a qualitative study of the phenomenology type in which statistical population consisted of mothers of hyperactive children living in Goldasht, Isfahan. in this study  15 mothers with hyperactive children were chosen in a targeted manner with the snowball sampling method. Data was collected using the semi-structured interview method, and this procedure continued to the point of data saturation and finally, the data were analyzed using the Van Manen Phenomenology Data Analysis method. The obtained contents consist of the following eight main items: lethargy and lack of motivation, decreased control of excitement, mental affect arousal of the mother, environmental problems, reduced fun and games, slumping in educational progress, changes in the amount of sleeping and eating, and reduction in social interactions.The obtained results show an exacerbation of ADHD symptoms during the Corona outbreak. According to the results, this project can facilitate better understanding of the factors affecting hyperactivity.

References:

Association, American Psychiatric. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. American Psychiatric Publishing.

Bartel, K. A., Gradisar, M., & Williamson, P. (2015). Protective and risk factors for adolescent sleep: a meta-analytic review. Sleep medicine reviews, 21, 72-85.‏

Bennett, T., & Holloway, K. (2005). Disaggregating the relationship between drug misuse and crime. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 38(1), 102-121.‏

Brooke, H. L., Corder, K., Atkin, A. J., & van Sluijs, E. M. (2014). A systematic literature review with meta-analyses of within-and between-day differences in objectively measured physical activity in school-aged children. Sports Medicine, 44(10), 1427-1438.‏

Colomer-Diago, C., Miranda-Casas, A., Herdoiza-Arroyo, P., & Presentación-Herrero, M. J. (2012). Funciones ejecutivas y características estresantes de niños con trastorno por déficit de atención/hiperactividad: influencia en los resultados durante la adolescencia. Rev Neurol, 54(Supl 1), 117-26.‏

Cortese, S., Asherson, P., Sonuga-Barke, E., Banaschewski, T., Brandeis, D., Buitelaar, J., ... & Simonoff, E. (2020). ADHD management during the COVID-19 pandemic: guidance from the European ADHD Guidelines Group. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4(6), 412-414.‏

Cortese, S., Faraone, S. V., Konofal, E., & Lecendreux, M. (2009). Sleep in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis of subjective and objective studies. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 48(9), 894-908.‏

Dadsetan, Parirokh, Delazar, Robabeh, Alipour, Ahmad. (2010). Executive Functioning in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Developmental Pscychology, 7(25), 27. [Persian]

Dees, D. M., & Heinfeldt, J. (2007). An aesthetic analysis of an educational, videoconferencing experience. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC), 4(2).‏

Du, Z., Wang, L., Cauchemez, S., Xu, X., Wang, X., Cowling, B. J., & Meyers, L. A. (2020). Risk for transportation of coronavirus disease from Wuhan to other cities in China. Emerging infectious diseases, 26(5), 1049.‏

Faraone, S. V., Banaschewski, T., Coghill, D., Zheng, Y., Biederman, J., Bellgrove, M. A., . . . Wang, Y. (2021). The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 evidence-based conclusions about the disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

Goswami, J. N., Sondhi, V., Simalti, A. K., Bamal, M., & Roy, S. (2021). Effects of lockdown during corona pandemic on children with neurodevelopmental disorders-A questionnaire-based survey. Turkish Journal of Pediatrics, 63(4).‏

Hamed, A. M., Kauer, A. J., & Stevens, H. E. (2015). Why the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder matters. Frontiers in psychiatry, 6, 168.‏

Harvey, E. A. (2000). Parenting similarity and children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 22(3), 39-54.‏

Hossain, M. M., Sultana, A., & Purohit, N. (2020). Mental health outcomes of quarantine and isolation for infection prevention: a systematic umbrella review of the global evidence. Epidemiology and health, 42.‏

Johnston, C., Mash, E. J., Miller, N., & Ninowski, J. E. (2012). Parenting in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Clinical psychology review, 32(4), 215-228.‏

‏Kofler, M. J., Larsen, R., Sarver, D. E., & Tolan, P. H. (2015). Developmental trajectories of aggression, prosocial behavior, and social–cognitive problem solving in emerging adolescents with clinically elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Journal of abnormal psychology, 124(4), 1027.‏

Langberg, J. M., Smith, Z. R., Dvorsky, M. R., Molitor, S. J., Bourchtein, E., Eddy, L. D., ... & Oddo, L. E. (2018). Factor structure and predictive validity of a homework motivation measure for use with middle school students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). School Psychology Quarterly, 33(3), 390.‏

 Lecendreux, M., Konofal, E., & Faraone, S. V. (2011). Prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and associated features among children in France. Journal of attention disorders, 15(6), 516-524.‏

Lee, J. (2020). Mental health effects of school closures during COVID-19. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4(6), 421.‏

Madrid, J. A. (2020). Los Trastornos Del Sueño En Niños Pueden Provocar Problemas de Memoria, Sobrepeso y Depresión. El País.‏

McInerney, R. J., & Kerns, K. A. (2003). Time reproduction in children with ADHD: Motivation matters. Child Neuropsychology, 9(2), 91-108.‏

Mengin, A., Allé, M. C., Rolling, J., Ligier, F., Schroder, C., Lalanne, L., ... & Giersch, A. (2020). Conséquences psychopathologiques du confinement. L'encephale, 46(3), S43-S52.‏

Mulas, F., Rojas, M., & Gandía, R. (2019). Sueño en los trastornos del neurodesarrollo, déficit de atención e hiperactividad y en el espectro autista. MEDICINA (Buenos Aires), 79(Supl III), 33-36.‏

Reeve, J. (2006). Teachers as facilitators: What autonomy-supportive teachers do and why their students benefit. The Elementary School Journal, 106, 225-236.

Reijnen, E., & Opwis, K. (2008). Visual search in children with ADHD: The influence of feedback on selective attention. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 774-774.‏

Sánchez, E. Z., Cortéz, J. A. M., Cortes, N. A. S., del Rio Carlos, Y., Moreno, M. D., Hernández, J. V., ... & Alfaro-Rodríguez, A. (2021). Alterations in the sleep pattern in patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. British Journal of Medical & Health Sciences (BJMHS), 3(3).‏

Sasaki, T., Niitsu, T., Tachibana, M., Takahashi, J., & Iyo, M. (2020). The inattentiveness of children with ADHD may worsen during the COVID-19 quarantine.‏

Shinn, A. K., & Viron, M. (2020). Perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic and individuals with serious mental illness. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 81(3), 0-0.‏

Shuai, L., He, S., Zheng, H., Wang, Z., Qiu, M., Xia, W., ... & Zhang, J. (2021). Influences of digital media use on children and adolescents with ADHD during COVID-19 pandemic. Globalization and health, 17(1), 1-9.‏

Skalski, S., Pochwatko, G., & Balas, R. (2021). Impact of motivation on selected aspects of attention in children with ADHD. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 52(4), 586-595.‏

Sonuga-Barke, E. J. (2003). The dual pathway model of AD/HD: an elaboration of neuro-developmental characteristics. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 27(7), 593-604.‏

Thomas, R., Sanders, S., Doust, J., Beller, E., & Glasziou, P. (2015). Prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 135(4), e994-e1001.‏

Tripp G, Wickens JR (2008) Research review: dopamine transfer deficit: a neurobiological theory of altered reinforcement mechanisms in ADHD. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 49(7):691–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01851.x

Underbrink, E. G. (2018). Summer Treatment Program for ADHD and ASD: The Role of Physical Activity, Sleep and Inhibitory Control (Doctoral dissertation, Seattle Pacific University).‏

Valdizán, J. R. (2005). Trastornos generalizados del desarrollo y sueño. Rev. neurol.(Ed. impr.), 135-138.‏

Volkow, N. D., Wang, G. J., Newcorn, J. H., Kollins, S. H., Wigal, T. L., Telang, F., ... & Swanson, J. M. (2011). Motivation deficit in ADHD is associated with dysfunction of the dopamine reward pathway. Molecular psychiatry, 16(11), 1147-1154.‏

Wang, G., Zhang, Y., Zhao, J., Zhang, J., & Jiang, F. (2020). Mitigate the effects of home confinement on children during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Lancet, 395(10228), 945-947.‏

Wasserman, T., & Wasserman, L. (2020). Motivation: State, Trait, or Both. In Motivation, Effort, and the Neural Network Model (pp. 93-101). Springer, Cham.‏

World Health Organization. 2) April, 2020(. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.

Xinhua Net, )2020(. China Focus: Schools Start Online Courses As Epidemic Control Postpones New Semester. Xinhua Net.

Yao, H., Chen, J. H., & Xu, Y. F. (2020). Patients with mental health disorders in the COVID-19 epidemic.‏

Zhang, J., Shuai, L., Yu, H., Wang, Z., Qiu, M., Lu, L. ... & Chen, R. (2020). Acute stress, behavioural symptoms and mood states among school-age children with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder during the COVID-19 outbreak. Asian journal of psychiatry, 51, 102077.‏