Discussion
As shown in Table A.2, it is demonstrated that modified CBGT significantly influenced three assessments of SNAP, PSI-SF (Total), PSI-SF (DC), Barratt (N), and CONNERS (CP), CONNERS (P), and CONNERS (A). Nevertheless, the results indicate that CBGT is not effective on PSI-SF (PD), PSI-SF (PCDI), CONNERS (P), CONNERS (A), CONNERS (I), Barratt (M), Barratt (A), Barratt (Total) scores. One possible reason for the ineffectiveness is that the group intervention cannot be effective in every aspect by itself. Despite the use of medication, CBGT for children with ADHD only contains a short period of treatment, resulting in many unrelieved symptoms that require long-term management. In addition, a study indicates that children with ADHD who have a poor family environment, specifically low education levels, inferior occupation status, and unstable emotions, may be more likely to develop ADHD (Huang et al., 2018). The data in Table A.1 indicate a number of external factors, including children’s personalities, family members’ involvement, and daily income, that may contribute to the insignificant data on ADHD. As a result of these effects, different subsets of the scale may exhibit nuances.
Two subsets of data indicate that CBGT intervention has no significant effect on non-planning impulsiveness in children or parental distress among parents; however, the intervention significantly alters parents’ basic cognition of ADHD and provides better flexibility and understanding in their relationship with their children. As a result, modified CBGT counseling was successful in reducing ADHD-related symptoms, as well as parenting stress caused by
According to research (Hamed, 2015), ADHD is one of the most frequently diagnosed disorders in children and adolescents (Theule et al., 2018), with a prevalence rate of 5%-11%. In spite of this high prevalence rate, there is a low level of consultation and compliance due to a lack of understanding or even a misunderstanding of ADHD in China. In light of these misunderstandings, parents are more likely to form negative opinions regarding their children’s current situation and future, which greatly inhibits positive family relationships. The importance of CBGT intervention for ADHD patients in China is therefore exceptional. It is possible to eliminate their misperceptions and rejections of their children due to their abnormal functioning by offering targeted professional parent courses. By participating in CBGT courses, parents were able to re-build their confidence regarding the restoration of family relationships, while gaining a greater understanding of their child’s prognosis. Furthermore, interveners and parents can communicate and receive feedback during the class to improve the skills of parents in mastering education methods applied to practical problems, which may alleviate their anxiety and depression to a certain degree.
In the meantime, CBGT interventions had significant positive effects on children as well. Parents may initiate using a positive parenting approach to children when they have reached a certain level of ease, such as a peaceful and harmonious way of communicating with their children instead of blaming and criticizing them repeatedly. Due to such conversion, children with ADHD were more likely to comply with the corresponding drug treatment and thereby increased the effectiveness of the treatment. Likewise, when children with ADHD symptoms subsided, parents may be able to confirm the effectiveness of the intervention and thereby greatly increase compliance with consultations and pharmacology. By utilizing CBGT courses as a trigger, we are able to manipulate self-recovery by pushing both parents and children into the cycle. In short, the CBGT parents course prevented parents from misinterpreting ADHD symptoms in order to reduce anxiety caused by unknowns, as well as educating them the accurate ways to interaction with children. Conversely, when the symptoms of ADHD were significantly reduced following CBGT courses, so was the level of parenting stress. Accordingly, low anxiety promotes more positive education and a relaxed family environment, which in turn accelerates the rehabilitation of children with ADHD symptoms.
Although the result was promising and anticipated, the process of performing group therapy on children with ADHD and emotional problems was particularly difficult. The children typically exhibited a lack of self-control and compliance in class, resulting in a distraction of more than 90 minutes during a 120-minute class. The children did not only exhibit hyperactivity, but also emotional dysregulation and aggressive behavior, which made it difficult for us to control them (Schoorl et al., 2016). The observed characteristics of these children with ADHD who lack self-control and experience emotional dysfunction suggest that they might have trouble functioning well in the society. ADHD would be a long-term issue without early intervention, as Hamed et al. (2015) found, about 1/3 to 1/5 ADHD patients will have persistent symptoms into their adulthood. The prolonged effects of ADHD engender plenty of inabilities in social adjustment along the lifetime of ADHD patients. Halperin et al. (2012) evidenced that environmental and physical influences can affect one’s neural development, leading to long-term track of ADHD symptoms, which may cause irreversible social dysfunction. Based on this concept, early treatment of ADHD avoids enduring impacts by reducing the likelihood of being exposed to neurodevelopmental disorder for a long time. Therefore, this study gathered children with ADHD at their preadolescent ages in order to intervene at the optimal period of time that renders the best outcome of treating ADHD symptoms.