Change in Adolescents’ Perceived ADHD Symptoms Across 17 Days of Ecological Momentary Assessment

ABSTRACT

Objective

To test whether adolescents’ perceived ADHD symptoms may improve while monitoring them throughout the day.

Method

In a sample of 90 adolescents (M_age = 14.7; 66% boys, 34% girls; 76.7% White, 13.3% Black or African American, 8.9% more than one race, 1.1% “other”) treated for ADHD by their pediatricians, this study examined: (1) whether self-rated ADHD symptoms decreased across 17 days of 4 times daily ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of symptoms and (2) whether completing versus missing an EMA survey was associated with lower self-rated ADHD symptoms in the subsequent hours.

Results

Multilevel regression analyses showed that, on average, adolescents’ perceived ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and total across domains) decreased across 17 days of EMA. Within person, symptoms were lower following completed versus missed EMA surveys. Significant moderating effects showed that the effect of completing the prior EMA survey weakened across the day and over the course of the 17 days.

Conclusions

This study is the first to document acute improvements in self-rated ADHD symptoms using EMA in adolescents’ naturalistic environments. Symptom monitoring throughout the day may help adolescents improve their day-to-day ADHD, at least acutely, and holds promise as one component of mobile-health ADHD interventions.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and appropriate institutional oversight and approval.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Variables were centered so that the intercepts and main effects comprising interactions could be interpreted to apply to the largest subgroups within the sample.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA040213) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA007453 and AA029133).