ORIGINAL ARTICLE Retrospective assessment of childhood ADHD symptoms for diagnosis in adults: validity of a short 8-item version of the Wender-Utah Rating Scale Debjani Das 1 • Jorge I. Ve ´lez 1,2,3 • Maria T. Acosta 4,5,6 • Maximilian Muenke 6 • Mauricio Arcos-Burgos 1,2,6 • Simon Easteal 1 Received: 31 January 2016 / Accepted: 25 July 2016 Ó Springer-Verlag Wien 2016 Abstract The Wender-Utah Rating Scale (WURS) is a widely used self-report instrument for retrospective assessment of childhood ADHD. However, many WURS items are not specific to ADHD. Here, we investigated the effect of excluding these items on the performance of the WURS in predicting adult ADHD based on previous diagnosis and current clinically significant symptoms. The study was conducted on a sample of adults (n = 1014; 48 % male) participating in a family-based investigation of ADHD. Participants completed the 61-item WURS ques- tionnaire and the 66-item Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scale. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to compare the performance of the eight-item WURS (WURS-8) and the longer WURS-25 in predicting previous ADHD diagnosis and current clinically significant ADHD symptoms. WURS-8 and WURS-25 have approximately the same power to predict adult ADHD, based on either previous diagnosis or current symptoms (area under the ROC curves [ 0.8). WURS-8 performs at least as well as the longer WURS-25 in predicting adult ADHD. This 8-item questionnaire is thus a valid instrument and is especially useful for screening for ADHD in large epi- demiological samples. Keywords Adult ADHD Á WURS Á CAARS Á ROC Á Sensitivity Á Specificity Introduction Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neu- ropsychiatric disorder characterized by age-inappropriate inattention, excessive motor activity and impulsivity (Bie- derman and Faraone 2005). ADHD often persists into adulthood (Barkley 2010), but it remains largely unrecog- nized and under-diagnosed, despite a prevalence of 1–7 % in adults (Biederman and Faraone 2005; Fayyad et al. 2007; Polanczyk et al. 2007; Ebejer et al. 2012; Hall et al. 2013; Ginsberg et al. 2014). Because ADHD is considered a developmental disorder, the occurrence of symptoms before the age of 12 years is a prerequisite for valid diagnosis using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; Barkley 2010; American Psychiatric Association 2013) criteria. Childhood recollection of symptoms is therefore important for adults who may not be diagnosed if they fail to meet this criterion, even though they experience an impairing disorder and might benefit from treatment (Faraone et al. 2006a, b; Fayyad et al. 2007; Polanczyk et al. 2007; Karam et al. 2009; Kieling et al. 2010; Bell 2011; Ebejer et al. 2012; Hall et al. 2013; Ginsberg et al. 2014). The Wender-Utah Rating Scale (WURS; Ward et al. 1993) is one of several instruments used for ADHD & Debjani Das debjani.das@anu.edu.au 1 John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University, Building 131, Garran Road, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia 2 Neuroscience Research Group, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia 3 Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia 4 The Jennifer and Daniel Gilbert Neurofibromatosis Institute, Washington, DC, USA 5 Center for Neuroscience and Behavioral Medicine at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA 6 Medical Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA 123 ADHD Atten Def Hyp Disord DOI 10.1007/s12402-016-0202-9