Question

Question: Is the Family-School Success (FSS) intervention for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their families effective in improving family and educational functioning?

Patients: 199 school children in grades 2–6 with DSM-IV ADHD and their families.

Setting: One paediatric hospital's ADHD centre, USA.

Intervention: The FSS intervention versus the Coping with ADHD through Relationships and Education (CARE) intervention over 12 weeks. The weekly FSS sessions consisted of: six parent group meetings and simultaneous child group sessions; four sessions of individualised family therapy and two family-school consultations. FSS included homework interventions, a daily school report card and a structured parent–teachers problem-solving process. CARE aimed to support and educate parents and consisted of 11 group sessions and one family–school meeting.

Outcomes: Parent involvement in education (Parent as Educator Scale, PES; Parent–Teacher Involvement Questionnaire, PTIQ); homework performance (parent-rated Homework Problem Checklist, HPC—inattention/avoidance factor and poor productivity factor; Homework Performance Questionnaire—Teacher version, HPQ-T); parent-child interaction (Parent–Child Relationship Questionnaire, PCRQ); ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms (Swanson, …