Validity of the World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self‐Report Scale (ASRS) Screener in a representative sample of health plan members

Abstract

The validity of the six‐question World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self‐Report Scale (ASRS) Screener was assessed in a sample of subscribers to a large health plan in the US. A convenience subsample of 668 subscribers was administered the ASRS Screener twice to assess test‐retest reliability and then a third time in conjunction with a clinical interviewer for DSM‐IV adult ADHD. The data were weighted to adjust for discrepancies between the sample and the population on socio‐demographics and past medical claims. Internal consistency reliability of the continuous ASRS Screener was in the range 0.63–0.72 and test‐retest reliability (Pearson correlations) in the range 0.58–0.77. A four‐category version The ASRS Screener had strong concordance with clinician diagnoses, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.90. The brevity and ability to discriminate DSM‐IV cases from non‐cases make the six‐question ASRS Screener attractive for use both in community epidemiological surveys and in clinical outreach and case‐finding initiatives. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.