Evaluation of Intervention for Broadening Parents' of Children with ADHD Competences

Zbog činjenice da se roditelji djece s ADHD-om u Republici Hrvatskoj suočavaju s nedostatkom sustavne i kontinuirane stručne podrške, nastala je ideja za izradom i provedbom programa namijenjenog upravo njima. Cilj ovog rada je provjeriti je li program imao učinak na povećanje opće informiranosti i znanja o ADHD-u, povećanje kompetencija roditelja za suočavanje sa stresnim situacijama, povećanje emocionalne samoregulacije te povećanje emocionalne topline prema djetetu. Program je realiziran kao intervencija čiji je naglasak bio na povećanju općeg znanja o ADHD-u, znanju o tehnikama suočavanja sa stresom te poticanju usmjeravanja pažnje na unutarnji emocionalni svijet roditelja. U tu je svrhu kreiran set od osam radionica koje su uključivale sljedeće teme: umijeće slušanja i govor prihvaćanja, aktivno slušanje u službi stvaranja samopouzdanja i samosvijesti, roditeljski odgojni stilovi, ADHD i komorbidnost s teškoćama učenja, ljutnja i rješavanje sukoba, prepoznavanje darovitosti djeteta te tehnike i metode olakšavanja učenja. U istraživanje je bilo uključeno ukupno 38 roditelja, čija djeca imaju dijagnozu ADHD-a. 20 roditelja činilo je intervencijsku, a 18 kontrolnu skupinu. Mjerni instrument koji se koristio bio je Upitnik opće informiranosti o ADHD-u, roditeljske emocionalne topline, negativne komunikacije, stresa i emocionalne regulacije za roditelje. Mjerenje za obje skupine bilo je izvršeno u dvije vremenske točke – prije i nakon provedbe intervencije. Za statističku analizu podataka korišteni su medijan test, Mann-Whitney test i Wilcoxonov test. Rezultati upućuju kako je intervencija bila statistički značajno učinkovita u pet od sedam mjerenih ishoda. Roditelji u intervencijskoj skupini su nakon provedbe intervencije počeli iskazivati statistički značajno veću emocionalnu toplinu prema djetetu, manji subjektivni doživljaj općeg stresa uzrokovanog eksternalnim uzrocima, veću razinu emocionalne samoregulacije, bolje opće znanje o ADHD-u, kao i bolje znanje o primjerenom i podržavajućem načinu reagiranja u različitim situacijama koje doživljavaju sa svojom djecom. Temeljem ovih rezultata možemo zaključiti kako je intervencija pomogla roditeljima djece s ADHD-om u kompetentnijem nošenju sa svakodnevnim problemima te da postoji opravdana potreba za osiguravanjem ovog tipa podrške. U cilju što kvalitetnijeg uvida u korisnost ovakvih programa, predlaže se dugoročnije praćenje njihovih učinaka.Due to the fact that the parents of children with ADHD in the Republic of Croatia face the lack of systematic and continuous professional support, the idea of a parent's competences broadening program was created. The aim of this master's paper was to assess whether the program had an effect on: increasing general awareness and knowledge of ADHD, increasing parents' competences to deal with stressful situations, increasing parents' self-regulation and emotional warmth towards the child. The program was implemented as an intervention that had following aims: increasing a general knowledge of ADHD, informing parents about stress-dealing techniques and encouraging parents to set more attention to the inner emotional world. For this purpose, a set of 8 workshops with the following topics was created: Skills of listening and speech of acceptance, Creating higher self-confidence and self-awareness using the active listening, Parenting styles, ADHD and comorbidity with learning disabilities, Anger and conflict resolution, Recognition of child's talents, Techniques and methods for sucessful learning process. The study included a total of 38 parents whose children were diagnosed with ADHD. Participants were devided into 2 groups, intervention group (N=20) and control group (N=18). Instrument used in the research was ADHD Awareness, Emotional Warmth, Negative Communication, Stress and Emotional Regulation Quesstionaire for parents. Intervention and control group were evaluated in two time points – before and after the program was implemented. The following tests were used in the statistical analysis of data: Median test, Mann-Whitney test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Wilcoxon test. The results indicated that the intervention was statistically significantly effective in 5 of the 7 measured outcomes. Parents in the intervention group began to show more emotional warmth towards the child after the intervention, their subjective experience of general externally caused stress decreased, emotional self-regulation increased, general knowledge about ADHD increased, as well as knowledge about the appropriate and supportive way of responding in different situations they are experiencing with their children. Based on these results, we can conclude that intervention helped parents of children with ADHD to be more competent in dealing with everyday problems. Also, there is a justified necessity to provide this type of support for parents of children with ADHD. In order to gain a better insight into the usefulness of these programs, longer-term monitoring of their effects is proposed