Comorbid disorders in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, taking into account the influence of expressed emotion

Abstract

This publication-based cumulative work presents three studies dealing with the etiology of ADHD. The first article examined whether ADHD with comorbid conduct disorder, compared with “pure ADHD,” represents an etiologically and genetically distinct disorder. In the second article, comorbid disorders in ADHD were predicted by Negative Expressed Emotion (NEE), i.e. hostility/criticism and lack of warmth, from fathers and mothers. The third article investigated whether expressed emotion can be experimentally manipulated and how this experimentally induced psychosocial stress affects children with and without ADHD physiologically.