Risk-taking and behavioral inhibition interaction in ADHD- with and without conduct disorder- compared with control children

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder is associated with impulsivity and behavioral inhibition deficits, Risk taking is the important aspect of impulsive behavior. The purpose of this study was to Comparison of risk-taking regarding behavioral inhibition deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with and without conduct disorder (CD) and compared with control children. 37 male children with ADHD (23 ADHD only and 14 ADHD with conduct disorder (ADHD+CD)) were selected by purposive sampling method and performed Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) and Go-Nogo task to measure risk taking and behavioral inhibition, and compared with 18 normal children. The data was analyzed by ANOVA, MANOVA and MANCOVA. Data analysis demonstrated that ADHD+CD group has the highest risk taking followed by ADHD and control group without considering of behavioral inhibition; although comparing to control group, ADHD+CD group has meaningless difference by arranging behavioral inhibition deficits, even though ADHD group has the same risk taking scores in compared with control group both considering behavioral inhibition deficits. This finding suggested that ADHD children have impulsivity because of behavioral inhibition deficits, while it would not be able to predict destructive behavior and risky activities in ADHD+CD in compared with ADHD by itself, also it could be a high risk taking pattern.