College Students' Acceptance of Potential Treatments for ADHD

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence that the professional occupation of a consultant making a treatment recommendation may have on college students' (82 women and 52 men) acceptance of a proposed treatment for a child displaying characteristics of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Consultants were special education teachers, school psychologists, or physicians. The study also examined college students' ratings of treatment acceptability associated with three frequently implemented interventions of either nonspecific medication, token economy with response cost, or time-out for children with characteristics of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Analysis indicated college students found a token economy intervention was the least acceptable recommendation by a physician.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. (4th ed.) Washington, DC: Author.

Barkley

R. A.

(1991) Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Psychiatric Annals, 21, 725–733.

Clark

Elliott

S. N.

(1988) The influence of treatment strength information on knowledgeable teachers' pretreatment evaluations of social skills training methods. Professional School Psychology, 3, 241–251.

Elliott

A. J.

Fuqua

R. W.

(2002) Acceptability of treatments for trichotillomania: Effects of age and severity. Behavior Modification, 26, 378–399.

Fairbanks

L. D.

Stinnett

T. A.

(1997) Effects of professional group membership, intervention type and diagnostic label on treatment acceptability. Psychology in the Schools, 34, 329–335.

Kalfus

G. R.

Burk

B. K.

(1989) The influence of case history and treatment mediator on ratings of acceptability of child treatment. Child and Family Behavior Therapy, 11, 45–55.

Kazdin

A. E.

(1980) Acceptability of alternative treatments for deviant child behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 132, 259–273.

Kazdin

A. E.

(2000) Perceived barriers to treatment participating and treatment acceptability among anti-social children and their families. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 9, 157–174.

Singh

Katz

(1985) On the modification of acceptability ratings for alternative child treatments. Behavior Modifications, 9, 375–386.

10.

Spreat

Walsh

D. E.

(1994) Impact of treatment efficiency and professional affiliation on ratings of treatment acceptability. Mental Retardation, 32, 227–233.

11.

Stinnett

T. A.

Crawford

S. A.

Gillespie

M. D.

Cruce

M. K.

Langford

C. A.

(2001) Factors affecting treatment acceptability for psychostimulant medication versus psychoeducational intervention. Psychology in the Schools, 38, 585–591.

12.

Tarnowski

K. J.

Simonian

S. J.

(1992) Assessing treatment acceptance: The abbreviated acceptability rating profile. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 23, 101–106.

13.

Von Brock

Elliot

(1987) Influence of treatment effectiveness information on the acceptability of classroom interventions. Journal of School Psychology, 25, 131–144.

14.

Whinnery

K. W.

Fuchs

L. S.

Fuchs

(1991) General, special, and remedial teachers' acceptance of behavioral and instructional strategies for mainstreaming students with mild handicaps. Remedial and Special Education, 12, 6–17.

15.

Witt

J. C.

Moe

Gutkin

T. B.

Andrews

(1984) The effect of saying the same thing in different ways: The problem of language and jargon in school based consultation. Journal of School Psychology, 22, 361–367.

16.

Woolfolk

A. E.

Woolfolk

R. L.

Wilson

G. T.

(1977) A rose by any other name …: Labeling bias and attitudes toward behavior modification. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 45, 184–191.