Effects of an exercise and mindfulness programme on symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in boys aged 9-11 years

Summary ADHD is the most common behavioral disorder in children. Some professional therapeutic treatment (PTT) of ADHD includes also physical exercise (PE) and mindfulness training (MT). In this study we have combined both. The sample included 20 subjects in the experimental (EG) and 19 in the control group (CG). All subjects were ADHD diagnosed boys, aged 10(±1) years. The intervention of the EG used PE and MT, while the CG intervention used unsystematic emotion education. The intervention took place twice a week for 60 minutes over the 3 months. The subjects' expression of ADHD symptoms was measured with the ASEBA CBCL/6-18 protocol (2023). Statistical analyses were calculated using IBM SPSS 25. Differences in the expression of ADHD symptoms between the groups were calculated using the Mann-Whitney rank test for independent samples. There where found no statistically significant differences (p=0.378). The short-term effect of the intervention was calculated using a two-factor ANOVA. On the symptom expression measures we found SSD (p<0.001) in both groups. There were significantly lower ADHD symptom expression in the EG. The same method was used to determine the long-term intervention effect. On both measures symptoms were a statistically significant (p<0.001) lower expressed in the EG. The magnitude of ADHD symptom expression was statistically significant (p<0.001) in both groups on both post-intervention measurements, but the symptom magnitude was significantly higher in the CG. Based on the findings, we suggest that such a systematic intervention could be used in modern PTT of children with ADHD.