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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Take the endorsed items one at a time and put a period of time around each one. When did this start? Was there ever a stretch when it was not there? Did anyone living with you notice a difference in those weeks? A questionnaire is a way of opening the conversation and not a way of closing it. If every answer comes back as 'this is just how I am', you are most likely looking at a baseline rather than an episode.
'Believers, if a troublemaker brings you news, check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly' (Quran 49:6). A questionnaire is news too, and checking it before you act on it protects the person in front of you.
الحجرات
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإࣲ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ أَن تُصِيبُواْ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَٰلَةࣲ فَتُصۡبِحُواْ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلۡتُمۡ نَٰدِمِينَ
Believers, if a troublemaker brings you news, check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have done
Qur’an 49:6read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Work on the adult ADHD self report scale is instructive here. In an international sample of people seeking treatment for substance use problems, the short screener flagged possible ADHD reasonably well, but the authors were plain that it is a screening step and not a diagnosis in itself. The same limit applies to mood questionnaires: a positive result is a prompt for careful questioning rather than a finding you can rest on.
van de Glind G, van den Brink W, Koeter MW, Carpentier PJ, van Emmerik-van Oortmerssen K, Kaye S, Skutle A, Bu ET, Franck J, Konstenius M, Moggi F, Dom G, Verspreet S, Demetrovics Z, Kapitány-Fövény M, Fatséas M, Auriacombe M, Schillinger A, Seitz A, Johnson B, Faraone SV, Ramos-Quiroga JA, Casas M, Allsop S, Carruthers S, Barta C, Schoevers RA, IASP Research Group, Levin FR. (2013). Validity of the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) as a screener for adult ADHD in treatment seeking substance use disorder patients.. Drug and alcohol dependence doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Questionnaires assume you can compare yourself now against yourself at other times, and a lifelong pattern is exactly what takes that comparison away.
If the person describes a distinct run of days when the need for sleep dropped away and those around them noticed a change, that needs proper assessment for a mood disorder and not reassurance.
Run a short anxiety and depression screener alongside the ADHD measure at every intake, not only when someone mentions their mood.
Most autistic people also meet the criteria for ADHD. The other direction is much thinner: only a small minority of people with ADHD meet the criteria for autism.
When someone says their heart races on their medication, ask whether it ever did before they started. It is the cheapest question you have and it usually sorts the answer out.