ASRS_ADHD v.1
The ASRS - adult ADHD Self-reporting scale (v1.1) has been adopted by the World Health Organization, and is also used in the large National Comorbidity Survey-Replication study (NCS-R). The scale is based on the DSM-IV current symptom traits and used to help differentiate individuals with and without ADHD.
The DSM criteria for ADHD requires the presence of current symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and/or hyperactivity in the past 6 months. Thus this 18 part questionnaire is divded into groups that relate to these aspects.
The first part consisting of 6 questions - Part A - acts as a screening tool with the remaining 12 questions in Part B helping to explore the issues deeper. The detection of adult ADHD is notoriously difficult and often based on whether the individual had childhood symptoms. This tool is able to assess the possibility regardless of a previous history. This tool may, however, alert the clinician to asking for a possible past history as the patient may have been undiagnosed as having ADHD as a child. Part A is normally marked out of 6 and starts at 0. Some marking systems separate out the selections among the five possibilities of response: Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very often This tool replicates this separation, so the total marks in Part A ranges from 0 to 24 A similar convention is used in Part B over the 12 questions, with overall score range of between 0 and 48 and a maximum score of 72 across both parts.. A score of >= 13 is indicative of ADHD warranting further investigation and a score of >= 8 in part B. However, a score >= 13 in Part A on it's own is able to trigger the need to run further tests on its own. One must bare in mind that the threshold between ADHD and non-ADHD varies depending on the question - scored at 2 or 3. The convention to use to interpret the score follows that in Ref (3)
As with all tools of this nature, it should not be used as sole evidence to make a diagnosis of ADHD without also being accompanied by results to back this up derived by further investigation.
Ref.1: Schweitzer JB, et al. Med Clin North Am. 2001;85(3):10-11, 757-777. Ref.2: Barkley RA. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment. 2nd ed. 1998. Ref.3: https://add.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/adhd-questionnaire-ASRS111.pdf
OBSERVATION.asrs_for_adhd.v1, EVALUATION.asrs_for_adhd_assessment.v1
