adhd test
Six questions about the last six months. A minute, scored right here: nothing is sent anywhere and we don’t ask for an email.
This is the ASRS, the World Health Organization’s screener. Of its eighteen questions, these six are the ones that turned out to be the most predictive.
One property is worth knowing before the result: when this scale fires it is rarely wrong, but it misses roughly a third of the people who have ADHD. A positive means a lot; a negative rules out little.
scored in your browser · answers go nowhere
0 of 6 answered — the result appears on its own once everything is answered
your result
0 of 6
about this questionnaire
The ASRS was assembled by the World Health Organization in 2003 from the diagnostic criteria. The full checklist runs to eighteen questions, but six of them proved most predictive, and those six are used as the screener. They are the ones here.
What gets counted is not a total but a number of marks, and the bar differs by question: for the first three, "sometimes" and above counts; for the last three, only "often" and above. Four marks out of six is the point where further assessment is advised.
The scale’s defining property is that asymmetry: it gives few false positives, and it misses about a third of the people who have ADHD. Read the result accordingly: a positive means a lot, a negative means very little.
What it can’t do. It doesn’t separate ADHD from what resembles it: an anxiety disorder, depression, chronic sleep loss, thyroid trouble, the aftermath of a long stretch of stress. It doesn’t see the childhood history a diagnosis requires. And it doesn’t distinguish presentations — six questions can’t tell you whether it is the inattentive kind or the hyperactive one.
short answers
- Does this diagnose ADHD?
- No. ADHD is established from childhood history, from how it interferes across areas of life, and after ruling out conditions that resemble it. The scale only shows whether it is worth going further.
- Do my answers go anywhere?
- No. Everything is scored in your browser: neither your answers nor the result reach a server, we don’t ask for an email, and the result disappears with the tab. Like any site, we run web analytics; what it collects is set out in the privacy policy.
- The scale didn’t fire, but I recognise myself. What now?
- Go anyway. This screener misses roughly a third of the people who have ADHD, most often the inattentive kind with no outward restlessness. A negative rules nothing out.
- Why do the questions have different bars?
- That is how the WHO form is built: the first three count "sometimes", the last three only "often". The split isn’t arbitrary — it comes from validating the scale: some features matter at moderate frequency, others only at high.
- Will I be given a diagnosis if I go?
- Not necessarily, and that is a normal outcome. Some people leave with a different explanation — an anxiety disorder, the effects of lost sleep, depression. That isn’t a wasted trip: each of those can be helped, and helped differently.
- Does breathing help with ADHD?
- It won’t fix attention itself, and we won’t claim it does. What it does reach is what travels alongside: anxiety, evenings that refuse to wind down, and being so loaded that nothing will start.
read next
can’t focus pomodoro timer constant anxiety
what we read
- Kessler R. C. et al. 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):245–56 — the validation and the selection of the six items. pubmed
- Ostinelli E. G. et al. Comparative efficacy and acceptability of interventions for core symptoms of ADHD in adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Lancet Psychiatry, 2025;12(1):32–43 — 113 trials, 14,887 participants; the source for what actually treats adult ADHD. pubmed
Fewer than four of your answers crossed the scale’s bar — on this screener the picture doesn’t come together. What that means matters, because the scale is built asymmetrically.
It does not rule ADHD out. It misses roughly a third of the people who have it, particularly the predominantly inattentive kind, where there is no visible restlessness and no motor — just years of being told to try harder. If your life fits the description, seeing someone is still worth it, and a negative screen changes nothing at the appointment.
It is also worth looking elsewhere. Losing focus, forgetting things and being unable to start can just as easily be anxiety, lost sleep or burnout. Those are worked with quite differently, and they look much the same from inside.
Four marks or more is the point where the scale’s authors advise looking further. There is no diagnosis here and there can’t be: ADHD is established from childhood history, from how it interferes across areas of life, and after ruling out what mimics it.
But this mark has a useful property: in the other direction the scale is rarely wrong. False positives are few. So a positive isn’t a "maybe" — it is a solid reason to see a psychiatrist or a therapist who works with adult ADHD.
And an honest word about expectations. Adult ADHD responds to treatment, often noticeably — but what treats it is therapy and medication, not breathing and not apps. What we can help with is what travels with it: anxiety, evenings that refuse to wind down, and that state where twenty things are open and none of them will start.