UPI- Hope for ADHD, meta-cognitive therapy

Hope for ADHD, meta-cognitive therapy
Published: April 1, 2010 at 7:13 PM

NEW YORK, April 1 (UPI) — U.S. researchers say meta-cognitive therapy may help adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Researchers at New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center looked at treating ADHD adults with meta-cognitive therapy vs. treating them with supportive therapy.

Meta-cognitive therapy involves teaching skills and strategies that help reduce depressed and anxious thoughts/ideas and help enhance time management and other organizational abilities. Supportive therapy involves giving psychotherapy in a group setting, the researchers said.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, randomly assigned 88 adults rigorously diagnosed with ADHD to receive 12 weeks of either meta-cognitive therapy, or supportive psychotherapy. The two groups used equivalent ADHD medication.

Members of the group given meta-cognitive therapy showed greater improvement in ADHD symptoms — including self-ratings and observer ratings of ADHD — than those receiving supportive therapy, the researchers said.

“This is the first time we have demonstrated efficacy of a non-medication treatment for adult ADHD in a study that compared the active treatment against a control group that was equivalent in therapist time, attention, and support,” study researcher Mary Solanto said in a statement.