title: Psychological distress in children with developmental coordination disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
abstract: This study explored whether or not a population-based sample of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), with and without comorbid attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), experienced higher levels of psychological distress than their peers. A two-stage procedure was used to identify 244 children: 68 with DCD only, 54 with ADHD only, 31 with comorbid DCD and ADHD, and 91 randomly selected typically developing (TD) children. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured by child and parent report. Child sex and caregiver ethnicity differed across groups, with a higher ratio of boys to girls in the ADHD only group and a slightly higher proportion of non-Caucasian caregivers in the TD group. After controlling for age, sex, and caregiver ethnicity, there was significant variation across groups in both anxiety (by parent report, F(3,235)=8.9, p<0.001; by child report, F(3,236)=5.6, p=0.001) and depression (parent report, F(3,236)=23.7, p<0.001; child report, F(3,238)=9.9, p<0.001). In general, children in all three disorder groups had significantly higher levels of symptoms than TD children, but most pairwise differences among those three groups were not significant. The one exception was the higher level of depressive symptoms noted by parent report in the ADHD/DCD group. In conclusion, children identified on the basis of motor coordination problems through a population-based screen showed significantly more symptoms of depression and anxiety than typically developing children. Children who have both DCD and ADHD are particularly at heightened risk of psychological distress.
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: missiuna@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Missiuna
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: cairnej@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cairney
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: pollock@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pollock
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: campbelw@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Wenonah
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: russelld@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Dianne J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Russell
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: kmacdona@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Macdonald
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: schmidtl@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: nancy.heath@mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Heath
authors.affiliation: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: scott_veldhuizen@camh.net.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Veldhuizen
authors.affiliation: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; CanChild, Centre for Childhood Disability Research, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: mcousin@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Martha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cousins
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Anxiety; Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Depression; Developmental coordination disorder (DCD); Population-based