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ADHD Test for Adults: The ASRS

Six questions from the World Health Organization’s Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, one at a time, scored here in your browser. A positive screen is a reason to book, not a diagnosis. Nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere.

  • 6 questions
  • Under 2 minutes
  • Nothing stored
How a screening works hereThree steps: answer the questions one at a time; see your score instantly in your browser, never stored; bring it to an evaluation, in person or by video.1AnswerSix questions,one at a time2See your scoreIn your browser.Instantly.3Talk it throughBring it to anevaluation
Start the Questionnaire

Take the ASRS

Over the past six months, how often have you experienced the following?

  1. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?
  2. How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization?
  3. How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?
  4. When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started?
  5. How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time?
  6. How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor?

Your answers are scored in this browser. Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored. With JavaScript switched off the questions still work; the total has to be added up by hand.

Understanding Your Result

The ASRS does not add your answers up. Each question has its own bar, and four or more answers at or over their bar is a positive screen. It is short by design, built to flag rather than to assess, and it asks only about the past six months.

How the ASRS is countedSix questions shown as boxes. Each answer is checked against its own bar. Questions 1 to 3 count at Sometimes or more; questions 4 to 6 at Often or more. Four or more that count is a positive screen.How the ASRS is countedQ1Q2Q3Q4Q5Q6counts at Sometimes or morecounts at Often or moreFour or more that count is a positive screen.

What a Screen Can Tell You

That the pattern you described fits adult ADHD, and that a fuller assessment is worth having. Worth bringing to an appointment.

What It Cannot

Whether you have ADHD. Anxiety, depression and poor sleep produce the same answers. Telling them apart is what an evaluation is for.

What an evaluation involves →

How Accurate Is It?

In the original 154-person calibration study, the six-question screener had 68.7% sensitivity and 99.5% specificity when compared with blind clinical ratings. That means it produced few false-positive results in that study, but it also missed some adults who had ADHD. A full evaluation is still needed after either result.

Kessler and colleagues, 2005 →

Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) Part A, developed by the World Health Organization with the Workgroup on Adult ADHD.

More Common Than It Feels

An estimated 4.4% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 44 have ADHD now, and 8.1% have had it at some point, many of them never assessed as children and told for years they were disorganized or not trying. Adult ADHD responds well to treatment, and an accurate diagnosis is where that starts.

How we treat ADHD →NIMH ADHD statistics →

Common Questions

I was never assessed as a child. Can I still have ADHD?

Yes. An adult diagnosis looks for symptoms that began before age 12. Many adults were never assessed because they were quiet, did well enough in school, or simply coped. Old school reports help if you have them.

Will I be prescribed a stimulant?

A screener does not determine whether medication is appropriate. Treatment options are discussed only after a full evaluation and depend on your history, symptoms, risks and applicable prescribing requirements. How we treat ADHD.

What should I bring to the appointment?

Your result, and examples: the report that never got finished, the appointments missed, what a partner or manager has noticed. Anything from childhood, such as report cards, helps too.

Other Screening Tools

The same instruments clinicians use. Two minutes each.

From a Screen to an Answer

A positive screen is a reason to look closer. Bring it to an evaluation, and we’ll take the time to find out what’s going on.

Book an EvaluationCall (404) 404-4660