Grant: Operating Grant

Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood psychiatric condition, which often persists into adolescence. In adolescence ADHD is associated with poor academic, social, and emotional functioning, other psychiatric problems, substance abuse, and antisocial behaviour. Although medication effectively reduces symptoms such as hyperactivity and inattention, it does not directly address academic, social, emotional, and behavioural problems. Overcoming these would require building skills in organization, time management, problem solving, emotional modulation, stress management and interpersonal rapport. Yet, psychosocial treatments targeting such skills in adolescents with ADHD have been little studied and are scarce in the community. The proposed study will evaluate cognitive behavioural and skills training therapy (CBT+S) for medicated adolescents with ADHD. Adolescents will be stabilized on optimized medication and randomly assigned to 14 sessions of either manualized group CBT+S or manualized supportive group therapy (SGT, control condition). An additional treatment-as-usual group will be evaluated to control for repeated measurements. CBT+S will focus on skill acquisition in common problem areas for adolescents with ADHD, such as organization and time management, distractibility, impulsivity, and social skills. A coach will call each participant twice a week to help practice the learned skills. Parallel groups will be provided for parents of CBT+S and SGT participants focusing on education, support and sharing experiences. If CBT+S proves to benefit adolescents with ADHD, it can be made widely available to these adolescents in the community. This would help them improve their academic, social, and emotional functioning and ultimately their long term outcomes.