Concurrent anxiety symptoms in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms related toadolescent delinquency, aggression and commitment of violent acts

Sammanfattning: The current study aimed to examine subgroups with different levels of attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder-symptoms and anxiety symptoms and how these differedregarding involvement in delinquent behavior, aggression and commitment of violent acts.We hypothesized that four subgroups would be identified, and the subgroup with high levelsof both ADHD and anxiety symptoms would report equal levels on total delinquency asadolescents with ADHD only and that it would be mostly common among adolescent boyswith ADHD to have concurrent anxiety symptoms. We also hypothesized that symptoms ofhyperactivity/impulsivity would be more related to the predicted outcomes than symptoms ofinattention. The study was conducted through self-reports of 1072 adolescent boys and girlsfrom a community-based sample in Sweden. The results of the k-mean cluster analysisrevealed four different subgroups with different levels of ADHD and anxiety symptoms,labeled ADHD-anxiety, ADHD-only, anxiety-only and non-symptom. Further, one-wayAnalysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that the ADHD-only subgroup reportedsignificantly higher on total delinquency and aggression than the other subgroups. ADHDanxietysubgroup reported significantly higher on minor property offenses and commitment ofviolent acts. 2x4 Factorial ANOVA revealed that anxiety were more common amongadolescent boys. Thus, inattention was found to be more strongly related to the predictedoutcomes than symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity. These findings suggest thatadolescents with concurrent ADHD and anxiety might need different intervention andtreatment approaches.