Comparison of Mental Health Status in Mothers of Primary School Children with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder and Mothers of Normal Children in Yazd City (2015-2016)

Abstract Introduction: ADHD is one of the most common disorders among school children throughout the world. Parents of these children are faced with more conflicts than normal childrenʹs parents. The Purpose of his study was to evaluate and compare the mental health status of mothers having children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder versus mental health of mothers having normal primary school children, Yazd, Iran. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 160 mothers of primary-school children who were selected through random cluster sampling; 80 of them had children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder and the remaining half had normal children. Also, for the diagnosis of children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder, the Conners test as well as test of General Mental Health (GHQ) were used to measure mothersʹ mental health. The data were then analyzed in two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics (T-test and analysis of variance) Results: Comparison of mental health and its subscales indicated that mothers of children with ADHD disorder were lower in all aspects of mental health than mothers of normal children. Conclusion: According to the research results, mothers of children with attention deficit/hyperactive disorder have lower levels of mental health than mothers of normal children. So, it is recommended that education and health officials provide training courses for these parents to promote their mental health status and consequently their quality of family life.