Examining Age of Onset, Symptom Severity, and Neuropsychological Performance in Comorbid Trichotillomania and ADHD

Trichotillomania (TTM) has shown high rates of comorbidity with ADHD, the symptoms of which have been previously associated with lower quality of life and higher psychopathology severity. While both disorders have been associated with some performance deficits on neuropsychological tasks of motor response inhibition, research on deficits in TTM is inconclusive. Deficits previously found in TTM may be a result of comorbid ADHD as well as failure to compare to healthy controls. Onset of ADHD, an early childhood disorder, could also be associated with an earlier age of onset for TTM than the typical early adolescence. We compared adults with TTM alone (n = 59) and those with TTM and ADHD (n = 60) on measures of TTM severity, quality of life, and age of onset in this fully online study. We predicted that the comorbid group would have an earlier age of onset, higher TTM severity, and lower quality of life. We also compared these groups to a healthy control group (n = 60) on two neuropsychological measures, the Go/No-Go task and the Stop Signal Task, and we hypothesized that those with comorbid TTM and ADHD would have impaired performance relative to TTM alone and healthy controls while TTM alone would not differ from controls. Our results showed that those with TTM and ADHD reported greater TTM severity and lower quality of life relative to TTM alone, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in age of onset and generally nonsignificant differences between the three groups on the neuropsychological tasks. These results did not support the idea of a distinctive presentation of TTM with comorbid ADHD.