The University of Nottingham

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is both a major cause of poor mental health during childhood and one of the biggest risk factors for underachievement, criminality and psychiatric illness in later life.

Parents of children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) type difficulties are being invited take part in an innovative research project funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) which aims to develop new and assess existing intervention programmes to improve the quality of life for children and their families and reduce the long term burden associated with the condition.

Professor David Daley, principal investigator for COPPI in the Division of Psychiatry at The University of Nottingham’s Institute of Mental Health, said: “Childhood ADHD and other behaviour disorders represent a major long-term burden to children, families and the community at large. Children with ADHD produce higher costs in educational and health sectors through more contact with emergency services, outpatient clinics and health care providers. Early identification and treatment may help reduce the cost and burden to their own families as well as society and represent a promising therapeutic approach for ADHD.”

Enhancing child mental health provides a platform for well-being in later life. If the programme is successful it is hoped it can be implemented nationally leading to substantial savings for the NHS and improvement in the wellbeing of children and the quality of life experienced by their families.

Led by the University of Southampton The Programme for Early Detection and Intervention Programme in ADHD (PEDIA) aims to identify potentially the most difficult to treat pre-school ADHD children — these are children most at risk of a poorer outcome.

The Comparison of Preschool Parenting Interventions (COPPI) is a five-year NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research award to Solent NHS and this trial is the final component. The research is being carried out at The University of Nottingham in collaboration with Southampton.

The trial, starting this month, will be carried out over the next two years and hopes to recruit from about 100 families from Nottingham.

The research team is inviting parents or main caregivers aged 18 years or older of children aged two years nine months to four years six months with significant levels of overactive/hyperactive or inattentive behaviour to participate in this study to find out how effective two different parenting programmes — the New Forest Parenting Programme (NFPP) and Incredible Years (IY) — are in helping such families.

The specialist New Forest Parenting Programme (NFPP) was developed to target the particular difficulties for parents with a preschool child with ADHD and has been trialled successfully in Southampton and Guernsey.

However not all parents are willing to take up these programmes, especially when they have adverse life events and difficult circumstances to deal with — such as poverty, marital difficulties, mental illness, learning difficulties. COPPI was set up to adapt the NFPP approach to target those parents who might otherwise find it difficult to take part in research trials.

For further information about the study and to take part in a short interview to see if your family is eligible for inclusion in the study, please contact the COPPI trial team at The University of Nottingham on 0115 828 4211 or by mobile on 07881 280 369 or Dr Elvira Perez, the Senior Research Fellow for COPPI by email elvira.perez@nottingham.ac.uk