Inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity and antisocial personality disorder. Which is the best predictor of false confessions?

Abstract The aim of the study was to investigate the relative importance of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in predicting a history of false confessions to police. The participants were 90 male prisoners who were interviewed within 10 days of admission to prison. They completed the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Wender–Utah Rating Scale (WURS) and DSM-IV-TR Checklist for childhood and adult ADHD symptoms, respectively. Over half of the participants (58%) met criteria for APD, half (50%) had ADHD in childhood and of those 60% were either fully symptomatic or in partial remission of their symptoms. Twenty-two (24%) reported a history of giving false confessions during police interrogation. Adult inattention and hyperactivity symptoms were significantly more common among the false confessors than the other prisoners with high and moderate effect size (1.03 and 0.58), respectively. Binary logistic regression (‘forced entry method’) was used to determine the order of the predictor variables of false confession and the data were entered in three blocks (APD, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and inattention). Inattention was the only remaining significant predictor after controlling for APD and hyperactivity/impulsivity. The findings suggest that inattention is a more powerful predictor of false confession than hyperactivity/impulsivity and APD.