ASRS v1.1 Scoring: Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale Screener and Guide

The checklist instructions say that if four or more marks appear in the darkly shaded boxes within Part A, the patient has symptoms highly consistent with ADHD in adults and further investigation is warranted. That is a screening result. It tells you to evaluate further, not that the client has ADHD.

The instructions then point to three areas for the evaluation. Symptoms: review Part B, paying attention to marks in the shaded boxes. Impairments: review the whole checklist with the client and consider work or school, social and family settings. History: look for early-appearing and long-standing problems with attention or self-control, since some significant symptoms should have been present in childhood, although adults need not have been formally diagnosed as children.

The shading reflects how each question performed against clinical interviews, not a single cut-off on the frequency scale. On the printed form, the first three Part A items are shaded from Sometimes to Very often, and the last three are shaded from Often to Very often. The instructions note that the frequency-based response is more sensitive with certain questions.

Some reprints describe the rule as four or more marks under Often or Very often, which counts a Sometimes on items 1 to 3 as negative. The scorer on this page follows the shaded boxes on the original form. If your copy is shaded differently, score from your copy and say which version you used in the note.

Because the owners do not allow the screener to be modified, the scorer does not show the questions. For each of the six Part A items, choose the frequency the client marked. Each shaded choice is labeled as shaded, so you can check the key against your copy of the form.

Once all six items are answered, the scorer shows how many marks fell in the shaded boxes, whether that reaches four, and a sentence to paste into the note. It is deterministic, it runs in your browser, and nothing you enter is sent, stored or tracked. It does not score Part B, because the instructions say no total score is used for those twelve questions.

The ASRS v1.1 is a screen for adults. It does not make a diagnosis, rate severity, or distinguish ADHD from other conditions that affect attention, such as anxiety, depression, sleep problems or substance use. A diagnosis needs a clinical evaluation of symptoms, impairment and history. For children and adolescents, parent and teacher rating scales such as the NICHQ Vanderbilt Assessment Scales are used instead.

For the diagnosis codes once you have made a diagnosis, see the ADHD diagnosis code guide. Where a payer covers it, a standardized screening instrument may be reported with CPT 96127; check the payer policy.

Harvard Medical School, which hosts the ASRS for the National Comorbidity Survey, says use of the ASRS v1.1 six-question screener is free and does not require formal permission, and asks users to cite the 2005 Psychological Medicine article and keep the copyright notice. The licensing page for the six-question screener at New York University states that it is free for clinical and non-clinical use, including commercial use, with attribution, and that no modifications other than electronic versions are permitted. The 18-question Symptom Checklist and the newer ASRS-5 screener require a permission request.

Printed copies of the form carry a 2003 World Health Organization copyright notice. Because modifications are not allowed, WellNotes does not reproduce the questions, and the scorer uses topic labels and the printed response options only. Confirm the current terms on the Harvard ASRS page before you copy or distribute the form.