This study followed 368 young people from three public middle schools in the Washington, DC, area. They were first studied in eighth grade, at about age 13. They were seen again in ninth grade (351 youth) and 12th grade (245 youth). It was a community group, not a clinic group. Parents rated attention problems on a checklist, so the study measured ADHD symptoms, not diagnoses. Every student had to have a best friend in sixth grade to take part.
Boys with more ADHD symptoms in eighth grade showed a faster rise in negative feelings about their relationship with their mother across high school. For girls, the link ran the other way. This growing strain with mothers helped explain the link between eighth-grade ADHD symptoms and depressive symptoms in 12th grade. Across the whole group, strain with mothers did not change much on average.
Boys with more ADHD symptoms also showed a rise in negative best friend relationships, but girls did not. Strain with best friends did not explain later depressive symptoms for either sex. The separate results for boys and girls came from follow-up analyses run after the main models.
The study has limits. Only parents rated ADHD symptoms, and only teens rated their relationships. Fathers were not studied. Depressive symptoms were not measured at the start. The best friend rule may have left out some students with more ADHD symptoms.
The authors suggest that programs aiming to improve mother and teen interactions, especially for boys with elevated ADHD symptoms, may help prevent depressive symptoms, though this still needs testing.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Meinzer, 2020: link between eighth-grade ADHD symptoms and the rise in strain with mothers, boys, β = .34.
- Meinzer, 2020: the same link for girls, β = −.37.
- Meinzer, 2020: how much of the sex and ADHD symptom link to 12th-grade depressive symptoms ran through the rise in strain with mothers, indirect effect = −.27, SE = 0.12, 95% CI = [−0.50, −0.043].
- Meinzer, 2020: whether sex changed the link between ADHD symptoms and the rise in strain with best friends, β = −.57, p = .016.
- Meinzer, 2020: link between eighth-grade ADHD symptoms and the rise in strain with best friends, boys, β = .56.
- Meinzer, 2020: the same link for girls, β = −.21.
- Meinzer, 2020: average change in strain with mothers over time, whole group, slope M = −0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .085. What the terms mean:
- β shows how strongly one thing tracks another, with a minus sign showing the link runs in the opposite direction.
- Indirect effect is the part of a link between two things that passes through a third thing.
- SE (standard error) shows how much an estimate might shift by chance.
- 95% CI is the range the true value likely falls in, and a range that does not cross zero suggests a real effect.
- p is the chance of seeing a result this strong if there were no real effect, and values under .05 are usually treated as unlikely to be chance.
- Slope M is the average rate of change over time.
Source: Meinzer M, Felton J, Oddo L, et al.. Do ADHD Symptoms and Relationship Quality With Mothers and Best Friends Across High School Predict Depressive Symptoms for Adolescents?. Journal of Attention Disorders (2020). doi:10.1177/1087054720923088