Free ADHD Self-Test

Could you have adult ADHD? A 5-minute self-screening.

Name: Adult ADHD Self-Test (ASRS-v1.1)
Creator: World Health Organization

This is the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1), developed by the World Health Organization. It is the most widely used adult ADHD screening tool in the world. Your answers stay on your device. Nothing is saved or sent.

This is not a diagnosis. ADHD can only be diagnosed by a qualified mental health professional. A positive screen means your symptoms are worth a proper assessment, not that you have ADHD. A negative screen does not rule it out either.

Developed by

World Health Organization

Sensitivity

68.7%

Specificity

99.5%

Classification accuracy

97.9%

Validation: Kessler RC, Adler L, et al. (2005). Psychological Medicine 35(2):245-256. See full sources →

How to use this

Set aside about 5 quiet minutes. There are 18 short questions.
Answer based on how you have felt and behaved over the past 6 months. Not your worst week, not your best week.
Be honest. There are no right or wrong answers.
Your result appears below the questions and updates as you answer.
If your screen is positive, book a session with an ElloMind psychologist for a proper evaluation.

The questions

Options with a small line under them are the answers that count toward the screening score. Answer honestly anyway. The line is just a hint about how the original WHO researchers built the tool.

0 of 18 answered

Question 1 of 18

Question 1. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?

Question 2 of 18

Question 2. How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization?

Question 3 of 18

Question 3. How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?

Question 4 of 18

Question 4. When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started?

Question 5 of 18

Question 5. How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time?

Question 6 of 18

Question 6. How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor?

Question 7 of 18

Question 7. How often do you make careless mistakes when you have to work on a boring or difficult project?

Question 8 of 18

Question 8. How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you are doing boring or repetitive work?

Question 9 of 18

Question 9. How often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you, even when they are speaking to you directly?

Question 10 of 18

Question 10. How often do you misplace or have difficulty finding things at home or at work?

Question 11 of 18

Question 11. How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you?

Question 12 of 18

Question 12. How often do you leave your seat in meetings or other situations in which you are expected to remain seated?

Question 13 of 18

Question 13. How often do you feel restless or fidgety?

Question 14 of 18

Question 14. How often do you have difficulty unwinding and relaxing when you have time to yourself?

Question 15 of 18

Question 15. How often do you find yourself talking too much when you are in social situations?

Question 16 of 18

Question 16. When you're in a conversation, how often do you find yourself finishing the sentences of the people you are talking to, before they can finish them themselves?

Question 17 of 18

Question 17. How often do you have difficulty waiting your turn in situations when turn taking is required?

Question 18 of 18

Question 18. How often do you interrupt others when they are busy?

Understanding your result

How is the score calculated?

The ASRS-v1.1 has 18 questions split into two parts.

Part A — the 6 core questions (the screener)

Researchers found that just six of the 18 questions are the most predictive of adult ADHD. These six questions decide your screening result. Each one has a specific frequency above which the answer counts.

Question	Counts when answered
1. Trouble wrapping up final details	Sometimes / Often / Very Often
2. Difficulty getting things in order	Sometimes / Often / Very Often
3. Problems remembering appointments	Sometimes / Often / Very Often
4. Avoiding tasks that need a lot of thought	Often / Very Often
5. Fidgeting when seated for long periods	Often / Very Often
6. Feeling driven by a motor	Often / Very Often

Official WHO scoring rule (verbatim): "Score Part A. If four or more marks appear in the darkly shaded boxes within Part A then the patient has symptoms highly consistent with ADHD in adults and further investigation is warranted." The Kessler et al. 2005 validation study found this cut-off correctly flags most people with adult ADHD while only rarely flagging people without it.

Part B — the 12 supporting questions

The other 12 questions do not produce a yes-or-no result on their own. They give a fuller picture of which symptoms you experience. The accepted clinical threshold for any ADHD symptom is "Often" or "Very Often" (per DSM-5, the standard diagnostic manual). The "symptoms endorsed strongly" count tells you how many of all 18 questions you marked at this clinically meaningful level.

Two symptom domains

ADHD symptoms split into two clusters. The breakdown above shows how many you endorsed in each:

Inattention: trouble focusing, organizing, finishing tasks, remembering, getting distracted (questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
Hyperactive / impulsive: restlessness, fidgeting, talking too much, interrupting, difficulty waiting (questions 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)

Adults need 5 or more symptoms in either domain (at "Often" or "Very Often") to meet the symptom criterion under DSM-5. That is one of several criteria a clinician will check.

Why two thresholds for Part A?

The six Part A questions are weighted differently because researchers found that for some of them, even "Sometimes" was a strong predictor. For others, the answer needed to be "Often" or higher. The line under each option in the form reflects this.

What if my screen is positive?

A positive screen is not a diagnosis. It means your symptoms are worth a proper assessment with a psychologist.

An ADHD evaluation looks at:

Whether your symptoms show up in more than one setting (work, home, relationships)
Whether you had similar symptoms as a child (ADHD starts before age 12)
How much your symptoms affect daily life
Whether something else (anxiety, depression, sleep problems, thyroid issues, trauma) might explain what you are experiencing

ElloMind psychologists conduct ADHD evaluations in English and Malayalam. A first session takes about 50 minutes.

What if my screen is not positive but something still feels off?

Trust that. A screening tool only checks one possible explanation. Many things can cause attention or restlessness problems: anxiety, depression, sleep problems, burnout, life transitions, or thyroid issues.

If something feels off, talk to a psychologist. The conversation does not need to be about ADHD. It can be about whatever is actually bothering you.

Is the scoring official? Validation, accuracy, and sources

Where the scoring rules come from

Every scoring rule on this page is taken directly from the official published version of the ASRS-v1.1. Nothing has been modified, simplified, or interpreted.

Scoring rule	Source
The 18 questions, verbatim	WHO Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) Symptom Checklist
Item-specific shading thresholds (Q1-3 count from "Sometimes", Q4-6 count from "Often")	Kessler et al., 2005, Psychological Medicine 35(2):245-256
Cut-off of 4 or more in shaded zones = positive screen	WHO ASRS-v1.1 Symptom Checklist scoring instructions
Symptom criterion threshold ("Often" or "Very Often" = symptom present)	DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association, 2013
Symptom domain mapping (Inattention vs Hyperactivity-Impulsivity)	DSM-IV-TR / DSM-5 ADHD diagnostic criteria
Adult diagnostic threshold (≥5 symptoms in either domain)	DSM-5, ADHD criterion A (adults)

How accurate is the 6-item screener?

The 6-item screener was validated against full clinical assessment in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a representative US population sample. Results from Kessler et al. (2005):

Sensitivity: 68.7%. When someone has ADHD, the screener correctly flags them about 69% of the time.
Specificity: 99.5%. When someone does not have ADHD, the screener correctly does not flag them 99.5% of the time. False positives are rare.
Total classification accuracy: 97.9%.
Positive predictive value (PPV): 87.5%. If your screen is positive, there is roughly an 87% chance a clinician would confirm ADHD on full assessment.
Negative predictive value (NPV): 96.6%. If your screen is negative, ADHD is unlikely but not impossible.

Who developed it

The ASRS-v1.1 was developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Workgroup on Adult ADHD:

Lenard Adler, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, NYU Medical School
Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, Professor, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
Thomas Spencer, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

The instrument is in the public domain and used here without modification.

Limitations of any screening tool

Screening tools trade depth for speed. A 5-minute self-report can miss things a 60-minute clinical interview would catch:

About 31% of people with ADHD answer in a way that does not trigger a positive screen (the false-negative rate). If symptoms are affecting your life, do not let a negative screen close the conversation.
The screen looks at the past 6 months only. ADHD must also be present from childhood, which a clinician will assess separately.
Conditions that overlap with ADHD (anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, thyroid problems, trauma) can produce similar answers. A clinician differentiates these.
Self-report is honest but not perfect. We tend to underestimate or overestimate ourselves on different items.

Full citations

Kessler RC, Adler L, Ames M, Demler O, Faraone S, Hiripi E, Howes MJ, Jin R, Secnik K, Spencer T, Ustun TB, Walters EE. The World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS): a short screening scale for use in the general population. Psychological Medicine. 2005;35(2):245-256.
Adler LA, Spencer T, Faraone SV, Kessler RC, Howes MJ, Biederman J, Secnik K. Validity of pilot Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) to rate adult ADHD symptoms. Annals of Clinical Psychiatry. 2006;18(3):145-148.
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Washington, DC: APA Publishing; 2013.
World Health Organization. Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) Symptom Checklist. Available from the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview materials.

If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please contact a helpline immediately. Helpline numbers and emergency resources →