You wonder if you have adult ADHD.
Here are the 18 WHO-validated questions.
The ASRS v1.1 is the self-report screening tool for adult ADHD developed by the World Health Organization with Ronald Kessler and Lenard Adler in 2005. It's the most widely used screening worldwide, validated in over 30 languages. Before my neuropsych evaluation, this is where I started, like most people.
18 questions, two parts. Part A is the primary screen (6 items). Part B gives an extended profile (12 items). Five options per question: never, rarely, sometimes, often, very often. Scoring follows the official ASRS shaded zone: an item counts positive if it hits the required frequency (often or very often for most, sometimes or higher for items 4, 5, 6).
The result gives your Part A score out of 6, Part B score out of 12, and the breakdown by dimension (inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity). 4 or more positive items on Part A indicate a high likelihood of adult ADHD that warrants clinical evaluation. This test is not a diagnosis. A diagnosis requires a DIVA-5 with a trained clinician.
How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?
Inattention. 9 items (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Trouble finishing, organizing, remembering appointments, avoiding tasks that demand thought, focusing on boring or repetitive content, filtering ambient noise, finding objects. It's the dimension most often dominant in adults diagnosed late, especially in women. Russell Barkley insists: it's not an attention deficit, it's a deficit of attention regulation.
Hyperactivity. 6 items (5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15). Fidgeting with hands or feet, feeling driven by a motor, leaving your seat in meetings, internal restlessness, difficulty unwinding, talking too much socially. In adults, childhood physical hyperactivity often turns into inner agitation: the body sits still but the brain never stops. The opposite of the turbulent child teachers spot easily.
Impulsivity. 3 items (16, 17, 18). Finishing other people's sentences, difficulty waiting your turn, interrupting busy people. The shortest dimension but also the one that hits relationships hardest. Many adult ADHDers don't recognize themselves immediately in these items because they've learned social self-control. If you check them, it's often a strong signal.
You have a solid signal to request an evaluation. With 4 or more positive items on Part A, you're above the threshold the WHO considers a high likelihood of adult ADHD. It's not certainty. It's a clinical reason to request a DIVA-5. Keep your score, show it to your clinician, it shortens the referral.
You can start reading seriously. The diagnosis takes time (6 to 18 months in some regions). In the meantime, reading a solid book already changes how you see yourself. On the site, the review of Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley and the one of Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté cover two complementary angles.
You can prepare your developmental history. The clinician will ask for concrete childhood examples (before age 12). Note what comes back: report cards, teacher comments, family memories, anecdotes your parents repeat. The more prepared you arrive, the more the interview serves to confirm rather than excavate.
For more context, the diagnosis page details the process, and the adult ADHD symptoms page covers the 18 DSM-5 criteria behind the ASRS.
The 18 items are adapted from the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) v1.1, developed by Kessler RC, Adler L, Ames M and colleagues, published in Psychological Medicine (2005) under the title "The World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS): a short screening scale for use in the general population". The scale is free to use with proper attribution. The original version is available on Harvard Medical School.
What this test is not: a medical diagnosis, a psychometric test replacing a clinical evaluation, or a label to wear. It's a screening, free, to use without pressure and present to a clinician if the score is high.