Psychopathology in the Middle School students with attention deficit problem

Kwak, Young-Sook; Lee, Soon-Jeong; Hong, Jung-Yun

doi:2008.5.2.37

J Med Life Sci > Volume 5(2); 2008 > Article

Journal of Medicine and Life Science 2008;5(2):37-52.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22730/jmls.2008.5.2.37 Published online February 28, 2008.

집중력 문제를 보이는 중학생의 정신병리

곽영숙¹, 이순정², 홍정연³

¹제주대학교의과대학 정신과학교실
²서울시립 은평병원정신과
³제주대학교의과대학 소아과학교실

Psychopathology in the Middle School students with attention deficit problem

Young-Sook Kwak¹, Soon-Jeong Lee², Jung-Yun Hong³

¹Departments of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Cheju National University, Jeju, Korea
²Departments of Psychiatry, Seoul Metropolitan Eunpyoung Hospital, Seoul, Korea
³Departments of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Cheju National University, Jeju, Korea

Correspondence: Young-Sook Kwak, Email: yskcpy@cheju.ac.kr

Abstract

Objectives
This study focused on assessing the attention deficit problem of middle school students and finding out it's relation with their sociodemographic characteristics, and their other psychopathology.
Methods
Subjects of the study were 450 first grade students in a boy's middle school in Jeju. The authors tested their attention deficit problem with Korean version of Conners-Wells' Adolescent Self-Report Scale(CASS) and assessed other psychopathology with MMPI.
Results
After screening by CASS, the number of students within the range of ADHD risk group was 85(20.2%) and the number of students within the normal range was 336(79.8%). And there was no significant correlations between CASS score and parent's age, education level, family income, and expenses of housing. But It had significant correlation with pocket money. In MMPI, The number of students who had comorbid psychopathology in ADHD risk group was 26(30.6%). ADHD risk group showed significant differences in comparison with normal control group. ADHD risk group showed significantly higher scores in subscales of hystery, paranoia, and obsession than normal control group.
Conclusions
The results that about one third of ADHD risk group had any type of comorbid psychopathology and showed high scores in subscales of hystery, paranoia, and obsession supports the requisite need of psychiatric evaluation and treatment for adolescents complaining attention deficit problem.

Key Words: ADHD, MMPI, Middle school