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“I Have Always Felt Different”: The Experience of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Childhood

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Childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most important psychiatric problems of our time. This study examined the experience of childhood ADHD within the contexts that are most significant to this age group––home, school, and friendships. The sample included 16 college-enrolled young adults (ages 18–25) with a self-reported history of ADHD. Participants revealed feelings of difference, misunderstanding, and struggle in all areas of their lives (home, school, and friendships). Nurses can use these findings to improve the care and long-term outcomes of children diagnosed with ADHD.

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Setting and Sample

Participants were recruited from an office of disability services in a southeastern university. The researchers met with the disability services staff to explain the study and seek permission to recruit participants. The disability services staff agreed to assist the researchers by explaining the study to students who met the study criteria. After students were told about the study by the disability services staff, those who were interested in participating signed an interest list. The

Findings

According to existential phenomenology, every experience has a figure that stands out and a ground that is the context of the experience. In this study, the ground of the experience of ADHD was loneliness and isolation. As noted by one participant, “Can't anyone see I'm struggling?” Against the backdrop of this struggle, the figural theme of the experience of ADHD at home was “dealing with getting along (with my parents)”; the figural themes of the experience of ADHD at school were “I missed a

Discussion

These participants with ADHD recalled a childhood and adolescence shaped by feelings of difference, isolation, and misunderstanding. The parent–adolescent conflicts we found differed from the relationships observed in a study of hyperactive adolescent girls (Young, Chadwick, Heptinstall, Taylor, & Sonuga-Barke, 2005); in that study, parent–adolescent relationships were normal and functional. The differences, however, could be explained by the sample and design: Young et al. (2005) sampled

Nursing Implications

Our sample was composed of college-enrolled volunteers, primarily non-Hispanic White women, and thus, the findings from the study must be considered preliminary. Another limitation of the study was that the researchers were all White women. In addition, because the young adults in the study were enrolled in college and thus had attained some measure of success in their lives, at least academically, they may not be representative of the “typical” person with ADHD. Furthermore, because the sample

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the Gamma Zeta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International for partial funding of this study, Elizabeth Tornquist for her comments on earlier versions of this article, and the study participants for sharing important information about their lives.

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