Method

Participants

Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative, NIH-funded survey following adolescents from 1994–1995 (Wave I) into adulthood (Wave V, 2015–2016).
This study included data from Waves I, III, IV, and V, focusing on participants working more than 10 hours per week at Wave IV.
The final sample consisted of 6,173 adults (55.4% male; 60.1% White; mean age at Wave V = 38.0 years).

Measures

• ADHD Symptoms: Childhood ADHD symptoms (ages 5–12) were retrospectively reported using the BAARS-IV, producing inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive scores (α = .86, .81).
• Job Demand and Control: Two items adapted from the Job Content Questionnaire measured task repetitiveness (demand) and decision-making autonomy (control).
• Job Satisfaction: One global item rated from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).
• Perceived Stress: Four items adapted from the Perceived Stress Scale (α = .72).
• Covariates: Age, sex, race, and household income at Waves IV and V.

Analytic Approach

A moderated mediation model was tested in Mplus 8.5 to examine whether job demand and control mediated the relationship between childhood ADHD symptoms and adult work outcomes (stress and satisfaction), and whether ADHD symptoms moderated these paths.
All continuous variables were mean-centered, and indirect effects were tested using 5,000 bootstrap resamples with bias-corrected confidence intervals.