This study tested a short planning and organization program for 58 college students with ADHD in Belgium. They were 17 to 25 years old and came through three student counseling services. In the program group, 30 students got six individual sessions of about an hour with a psychologist. The other 28 were put on a waitlist.
Students in the program reported a bigger drop in inattention than the waitlist group. The authors called this a medium effect, and it was the only outcome where the program beat the waitlist. For ADHD symptoms as a whole, the difference was only a trend. Hyperactivity and impulsivity showed no clear change. Some study skills, low mood and a planning puzzle task improved in both groups alike. The authors note the puzzle gain may reflect practice. They think simply joining the study may explain that shared change.
Of the students assigned to the program, 17% did not start or finish all six sessions. Across both groups, 23% missed the post-test. Dropout was too high to judge whether gains lasted. The study stopped early with fewer students than planned, so it had less chance than recommended of detecting a real effect. Students rated their own symptoms and knew their group.
The authors suggest the program does not seem worth rolling out as is, and that a longer program or more practice in daily life may be needed.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Van der Oord, 2018: change in self-reported inattention, program versus waitlist, F(1, 56) = 5.136, p = .027, partial eta-squared .084.
- Van der Oord, 2018: average inattention scores before and after, 1.89 (SD 0.46) to 1.41 (SD 0.62) in the program group versus 1.80 (SD 0.41) to 1.69 (SD 0.49) in the waitlist.
- Van der Oord, 2018: change in ADHD symptoms as a whole, program versus waitlist (a trend only), F(2, 55) = 2.577, p = .085, partial eta-squared .086.
- Van der Oord, 2018: change in hyperactivity, program versus waitlist, F(1, 56) = 1.482, p = .229.
- Van der Oord, 2018: final power of the inattention finding, .61. What the terms mean:
- F a test score comparing how much groups changed; bigger means a clearer difference.
- p how likely a result this large would be by chance alone; below .05 is usually treated as unlikely to be chance.
- partial eta-squared the share of the change explained by the factor tested, from 0 to 1.
- SD how spread out the scores were around the average.
- power the chance a study of this size would detect a real effect.
Source: Van der Oord S, Boyer B, Van dyck L, et al.. A Randomized Controlled Study of a Cognitive Behavioral Planning Intervention for College Students With ADHD: An Effectiveness Study in Student Counseling Services in Flanders. Journal of Attention Disorders (2018). doi:10.1177/1087054718787033