Laurane Jarie

Comorbidity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with personality disorders in homeless people

BackgroundAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition that begins in childhood but can continue into adulthood, and may be the cause of many disadaptive behaviors, as in the case of homeless people, who often display a high incidence of personality disorders. The goal of this study is to analyze the comorbidity of ADHD with axis II disorders in a Spanish homeless population.ResultsThe outcomes show high comorbidity between these two kinds of disorders, and that the prevalence of axis II disorders is higher among people with ADHD than among the general population.ConclusionsFrom these results we can draw the conclusion that in homeless people ADHD in childhood continues into adulthood, when it is very often observed together with personality disorders. Finally, the implications of this study both for clinical practice and for future lines of research are discussed.

Translation and validation of the Mind-Wandering Test for Spanish adolescents

BackgroundWorking memory capacity and fluent intelligence influence cognitive capacity as a predictive value of success. In line with this, one matter appears, that of mind wandering, which partly explains the variability in the results obtained from the subjects who do these tests. A recently developed measure to evaluate this phenomenon is the Mind-Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ).ObjectiveThe objective of this work was to translate into Spanish the MWQ for its use with adolescents and to validate it and to analyze its relation with these values: self-esteem, dispositional mindfulness, satisfaction with life, happiness, and positive and negative affects.MethodsA sample of 543 secondary students: 270 males (49.72%) and 273 females (50.28%) were used, who completed the questionnaire, and also did tests of self-esteem, dispositional mindfulness, satisfaction with life, happiness, and positive and negative effects. The transcultural adaptation process followed these steps: translation, back translation, evaluation of translations by a panel of judges, and testing the final version.ResultsValidity analyses were done of the construct (% explained variance = 52.1), and internal consistency was high (α = .766). The coefficients of correlation with the self-esteem, MASS, satisfaction with life, happiness, and affects scales confirmed the questionnaire’s validity, and a multiple regression analysis (R2 = 34.1; model F = 24.19. p < 0.001) was run.ConclusionsThe Spanish version of the questionnaire obtained good reliability coefficients and its factorial structure reliably replicated that obtained by the original measure. The results indicate that the Spanish version of the MWQ is a suitably valid measure to evaluate the mind-wandering phenomenon.