Self-esteem and anxiety in human figure drawing of Iranian children with ADHD

This study is aimed at investigating the self-esteem and anxiety of children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder compared with normal children by means of Draw-A-Person Test. 30 children with ADHD were selected from psychiatric clinics of Isfahan, Iran using multi-cluster sampling. 30 normal children were also selected from public schools of Isfahan by the same method. The results were analyzed using analysis of variance and Chi-square. In this research, six criteria were selected from Draw-A-Person Test. The results revealed significant differences between the performance of the children with ADHD and normal children in terms of size and line characteristic (P < 0.05). For the other criteria no significant difference was found between these groups. Based on this finding, some aspects of drawing may be more meaningful than other aspects in drawings of children with ADHD.

► Self-esteem and anxiety in drawings of children with ADHD.
► Using Draw-A-Person Test.
► Children with ADHD were different from normal children in some emotional indicators of Draw-A-Person Test such as line characteristic and size but not in other indicators.