Family Management Styles and ADHD

Abstract

A previous study identified four family management styles (FMSs) exhibited in families with children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and suggested that understanding how families deal with a child's ADHD would provide additional information from which to create effective interventions. The present study used the FMS typology with a sample of children and adolescents with ADHD with the aims of demonstrating that FMSs could be reliably identified in a different clinical sample and clarifying changes in FMS that occur with treatment. All four FMSs were reliably identified in the sample and more than half of the families (56.3%) improved to a higher functioning FMS with treatment. The findings suggest that FMSs can elicit important information about family functioning and may assist clinical understanding of the child—family interaction that in turn facilitates treatment.