Appraisals of stress in child-rearing in Swedish mothers pre-schoolers with ADHD

Abstract.

Dutch self-report questionnaire for measuring parental: i) subjective stress, ii) global appraisal of the child-rearing situation, iii) attribution of child-rearing outcomes, and iv) expectation for help was translated into Swedish and applied to mothers of two groups of 3- to 7-year-olds: one with DSM-IV ADHD (n = 131) and one without DSM-IV ADHD (n = 131). The suggested factor structure of the original Dutch report was tested with confirmatory analysis on data from the mothers of children with ADHD [131]. There was no perfect fit to the data, but close enough to judge the factors as applicable to this sample. Factor reliability testing was performed. Results indicated good psychometric properties. Highly significant differences on all the measures in the four different sections (i) through (iv) were found between the ADHD group and the comparison group. The questionnaire is suggested to be useful in clinical work and research projects on problematic child-rearing situations.