When an ADHD screener may be useful
ADHD can feel like brain fog. You may know what to do but still leave a form unfinished, miss a bill or appointment, lose things, or wait for panic before starting. Save examples like these with your score so a clinician can see how the problem affects your life.
Daily-life impact
Tasks do not get finished
You may know what to do but still leave a form unfinished, miss a bill or visit, or wait until a deadline feels urgent before starting.
The screen
The six questions check common ADHD symptoms
Part A asks about your usual adult life during the past 6 months. The score can show whether a full ADHD assessment may help.
Life history
Your history gives the score meaning
Bring childhood signs, the places where problems happen, the help you need to stay organized, and other health or life changes that may cause similar symptoms.
ASRS-v1.1 is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. It cannot rule out ADHD or explain brain fog by itself. Sleep loss, anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use, medicine effects, thyroid disease, anemia, pain, migraine, and post-infection fatigue can cause similar problems.
Save this test
Save the score with real examples
Keep the score beside your daily examples. Bring both so the clinician can see what the number means in your life.
Save this screen once.
Who should use ASRS-v1.1, and what can affect the score?
ASRS-v1.1 is for adults. Age, hidden symptoms, school history, sleep, mood, trauma, substance use, and health problems can change what the score means.
Children and teenagers
Do not use adult ASRS-v1.1 for a child or teen. An ADHD assessment for young people often uses parent and teacher reports, school records, development history, and forms made for their age.
Adults 18 and older
For adults, ASRS-v1.1 can show whether a full assessment may help. Bring examples of daily problems, where they happen, other possible causes, and whether the symptoms began before age 12.
Women, girls, and masked presentations
Some people look organized because they plan every detail, avoid hard tasks, copy another person's system, or work for hours in private to catch up. Tell the clinician about this hidden work.
Older adults
ADHD can be found late in life. But new memory or attention trouble also needs checks for sleep, hearing, vision, medicines, mood, stroke risk, thyroid disease, low B12, anemia, pain, or dementia.
Pregnancy, postpartum, and hormones
Pregnancy, poor sleep after birth, breastfeeding, perimenopause, PMS or PMDD, migraine, thyroid disease, anemia, mood, and medicine changes can affect attention. Save when the change began.
Sleep, anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance use
These problems can look like ADHD, make ADHD worse, or happen with it. Check what's been lifelong, what changed recently, and what gets better when sleep, mood, trauma, substance use, pain, or medicines change.
How to prepare before taking ASRS-v1.1 to an appointment
Use ASRS-v1.1 only for adults. Children and teens need an assessment made for their age. It often uses reports from parents, teachers, and school records.
Answer about your usual behavior during the past 6 months. Do not base every answer on one crisis, deadline, sleepless week, or recent medicine change.
Save the score with real examples from work, school, home, money, driving, relationships, appointments, and chores.
Check whether the problems began before age 12 and happen in more than one place. Also note sleep, mood, trauma, substance use, medicines, pain, migraine, thyroid disease, anemia, or illness after an infection.
Use the 6-item Part A screener
The short ASRS-v1.1 screen uses the six Part A questions. Score it with the source instructions or a clinician's guide, not a number from a forum.
Count positives exactly
The CADDRA guide calls four or more positive Part A answers a positive screen.
Bring impairment, not just the score
List the ways the problem affects your life. Examples include missed visits, late bills, unfinished work, school or job trouble, driving mistakes, arguments, or hours spent trying to stay organized.
How do you read an ASRS-v1.1 score?
Check the score, then add examples from the past 6 months, childhood signs, places affected, and other problems that may explain the symptoms.
ASRS-v1.1 result
0 to 3 positive Part A items
This is below the usual positive-screen cutoff. ADHD may still be possible if attention and follow-through problems began in childhood and still harm daily life.
What it can mean
Low score with strong lifelong impairment, or positive score during acute sleep loss, anxiety, depression, pain, substance use, medication change, or crisis
The timing may have changed the score. Bring daily examples, childhood history, places affected, and notes about sleep, mood, pain, substances, or medicine changes.
4 or more positive Part A items
Ask about a full adult ADHD assessment. The assessment will check whether ADHD fits and whether another problem is causing or adding to the symptoms.
Ask for a full assessment
Four or more positive Part A answers support a full ADHD assessment. The assessment checks your history, daily problems, places affected, and other possible causes before a diagnosis.
See research details
The notes below explain the score, the studies behind it, and what a full assessment checks.
ASRS-v1.1 is an adult ADHD screen from the World Health Organization. Researchers chose six questions from the full 18-question form and compared the short screen with clinician ratings.
The CADDRA scoring guide calls four or more positive Part A answers a positive screen. This result supports asking for a full assessment.
In adult studies, the six-question screen matched clinician ratings well enough to help find people who may need a full assessment.
The World Health Organization later made ASRS-5 for DSM-5. ASRS-v1.1 is older, so save which version you used.
A full assessment checks your symptoms, daily problems, childhood history, places affected, and other possible causes. The screen is one part of that work.
A US study found that adult scores differed by age and sex. There are no separate cutoffs, but age and missed or hidden symptoms can change how a clinician reads the score.
Recent studies found that the form and setting can change how often people screen positive. A clinician should check a positive result with your full history.
What can you do before the assessment conversation?
While you wait for an assessment, save examples from daily life and try simple support for the problems you face now.
List what went wrong before you forget
List missed visits, late bills, unfinished forms, and piles moved from room to room. Add tasks you start but do not finish, lost keys, interrupting, losing track of time, or needing someone else to plan your day.
Try support you can use now
Try alarms, a visible checklist, one-task timers, written steps, fewer open tabs, working beside another person, and one place for keys and other basics. Notice which tools help you finish tasks.
Bring the look-alikes
List your sleep, snoring, shift work, mood, trauma symptoms, substance use, medicine changes, thyroid, B12, iron, anemia, pain, migraine, and recent infections. Mark which problems are lifelong and which are new.
Get urgent help for suicidal thoughts or a risk of harming yourself or someone else. Psychosis, mania, severe substance withdrawal, chest pain, fainting, or a seizure also need urgent help. The same is true for sudden problems with the brain or nerves or a sudden severe change in thinking.
What should you save in My Fog?
Keep these together
- ASRS-v1.1 version, Part A score, date, and 6-month context
- Examples of impairment: missed deadlines, unpaid bills, unfinished forms, late arrivals, losing items, task avoidance, interrupting, or time blindness
- Whether similar problems were present before age 12
- Settings affected: work, school, home, money, driving, relationships, appointments, chores, or follow-through
- Look-alikes: sleep, anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use, medications, thyroid, B12, iron, anemia, pain, migraine, or infection timing
Question for the visit
“Does my ASRS-v1.1 score and life history justify full adult ADHD assessment, and what sleep, mood, trauma, substance, medication, or medical causes should be checked too?”
Sources for ASRS-v1.1 Adult ADHD Screener
ASRS instrument history and access routing
ASRS-v1.1 18-item adult questionnaire identity and licensing context
Part A screening use and scoring instructions
Recognition, diagnosis, and management of ADHD in children, young people, and adults
Adult ADHD diagnosis and management context
Adult clinical assessment, DSM-5-TR criteria, lifespan history, and differential context
Child and adolescent ADHD diagnostic process context
WHO ASRS-v1.1 development and short screener performance
ASRS screener validity in health-plan sample
WHO adult ADHD DSM-5 self-report screening scale
US ASRS-v1.1 norms and age or sex context
Open-access adult ASRS-v1.1 normative data
Format and false-positive context for adult ADHD screening
ASRS screen-positive rate and format-effect context
See each claim's sources
indication
The WHO ASRS-v1.1 short screener uses 6 questions selected from the 18-item adult ADHD self-report scale.interpretation
Common ASRS-v1.1 scoring treats 4 or more positive Part A items as screen positive, which suggests clinical follow-up rather than diagnosis.interpretation
Kessler and colleagues found the 6-question ASRS screener performed well against clinical ratings in adult samples.context
A later WHO adult ADHD screening scale was calibrated to DSM-5, so ASRS-v1.1 should not be presented as the only adult ADHD screening option.limitation
Adult ADHD diagnosis requires clinical assessment with symptoms, impairment, history, settings affected, and differential review; a screener alone is not diagnostic.context
US ASRS-v1.1 norms show adult score differences by age and sex, but this does not create simple sex-specific diagnostic cutoffs.limitation
Recent ASRS format research highlights high screen-positive rates and the need for clinical follow-up rather than self-diagnosis.procedure
Children and teenagers need age-appropriate ADHD assessment rather than adult ASRS-v1.1 interpretation.