Teacher-rated ADHD

Abstract

The Conners Rating Scale (CRS) is the most often used questionnaire in ADHD assessment. However, there is a discrepancy between the widespread use of the CRS and the amount of empirically based knowledge about the test characteristics. Lacking national norm data, German-speaking countries usually use the US-American norms. Whether this may result in incorrect classifications is not yet known. The study analyzes behavioral ratings of teachers for 994 patients treated in a child and adolescent psychiatric clinic and for 424 healthy controls. German and US raw scores are compared. Discrepancies between the norm data depended on the scale. While conduct problems differed strongly, the impulsivity/hyperactivity scale showed only moderate discrepancies and the attention problem scale was almost identical. Using ROC analyses to discriminate the German normative sample from the clinical sample, the worst discrimination results were found for the conduct scale. The impulsivity/hyperactivity scale and especially the attention problem scale showed much better results in the ROC analyses.