Date of Award:

5-2002

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Psychology

Committee Chair(s)

Gretchen A. Gimpel

Committee

Gretchen A. Gimpel

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most frequently diagnosed problems affecting school-age children. This disorder can cause significant problems for children who consequently need treatment. Consumers of interventions for ADHD have efficacious treatments to choose from, but such treatment may not be implemented appropriately and effectiveness may decrease. Viewing treatments as 111 acceptable can affect treatment integrity and in turn increase effectiveness. Therefore, it is important that professionals understand how to increase the acceptability of treatments when first presenting treatment options to consumers. The primary purpose of this study was to determine if presenting parents and teachers with additional information about treatment options (behavioral therapy, medications, combination of both), beyond that of only providing treatment descriptions, would increase their treatment acceptability. Results showed that providing a rationale for treatment increased parents' acceptability for treatments involving medications, but not for behavioral treatments. This effect for how treatments were presented was not found among teachers. The results also suggest that parents and teachers differ in how acceptable they viewed some of these treatments. While parents rated the behavioral intervention as more acceptable than teachers, teachers rated the combination intervention as more acceptable than did parents. The results also indicate that consumers, especially parents, viewed the acceptability of these three treatment options differently, but that these effects interact with the amount and kind of information that the practitioners present to them. Specifically among parents, those who only received a description of the interventions rated the behavioral intervention as more acceptable than the combination intervention. However, there was no longer a significant difference in acceptability ratings of these two treatment options when rationales were provided along with treatment descriptions.

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