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Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study

OBJECTIVE: The primary objectives of this study were to investigate how adult patients with ADHD coped with their symptoms prior to diagnosis and treatment, what skills and compensation strategies they had developed and what their self-perceptions of these strategies were. METHODS: We used a qualita...

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Autores principales: Canela, Carlos, Buadze, Anna, Dube, Anish, Eich, Dominique, Liebrenz, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5617155/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28953946
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184964
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author Canela, Carlos
Buadze, Anna
Dube, Anish
Eich, Dominique
Liebrenz, Michael
author_facet Canela, Carlos
Buadze, Anna
Dube, Anish
Eich, Dominique
Liebrenz, Michael
author_sort Canela, Carlos
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: The primary objectives of this study were to investigate how adult patients with ADHD coped with their symptoms prior to diagnosis and treatment, what skills and compensation strategies they had developed and what their self-perceptions of these strategies were. METHODS: We used a qualitative approach to analyze interviews with 32 outpatients of a specialty care unit at a university hospital. RESULTS: Patients reported frequent use of diverse compensatory strategies with varying degrees of effectiveness. These were classified into five categories (organizational, motoric, attentional, social, psychopharmacological). In certain circumstances, ADHD symptoms were even perceived as useful. CONCLUSION: Before diagnosis and treatment, patients with ADHD may develop a variety of skills to cope with their symptoms. Several of these skills are perceived as helpful. Knowledge of self-generated coping strategies may help better understand patients and their histories and thus facilitate patient cooperation. Moreover, knowing ways in which such patients cope with their symptoms may help elucidate reasons for late or under-diagnosing of the disorder.
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spelling pubmed-56171552017-10-09 Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study Canela, Carlos Buadze, Anna Dube, Anish Eich, Dominique Liebrenz, Michael PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVE: The primary objectives of this study were to investigate how adult patients with ADHD coped with their symptoms prior to diagnosis and treatment, what skills and compensation strategies they had developed and what their self-perceptions of these strategies were. METHODS: We used a qualitative approach to analyze interviews with 32 outpatients of a specialty care unit at a university hospital. RESULTS: Patients reported frequent use of diverse compensatory strategies with varying degrees of effectiveness. These were classified into five categories (organizational, motoric, attentional, social, psychopharmacological). In certain circumstances, ADHD symptoms were even perceived as useful. CONCLUSION: Before diagnosis and treatment, patients with ADHD may develop a variety of skills to cope with their symptoms. Several of these skills are perceived as helpful. Knowledge of self-generated coping strategies may help better understand patients and their histories and thus facilitate patient cooperation. Moreover, knowing ways in which such patients cope with their symptoms may help elucidate reasons for late or under-diagnosing of the disorder. Public Library of Science 2017-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5617155/ /pubmed/28953946 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184964 Text en © 2017 Canela et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Canela, Carlos
Buadze, Anna
Dube, Anish
Eich, Dominique
Liebrenz, Michael
Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title_full Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title_fullStr Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title_short Skills and compensation strategies in adult ADHD – A qualitative study
title_sort skills and compensation strategies in adult adhd – a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5617155/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28953946
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184964
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