Large ADHD symptom test

The online test has now been completed by over 10,000 test subjects (as of August 2022). Around 92% of the results of the first test subjects matched the ADHD diagnoses given by doctors, whereby 18.5% of test subjects who stated that they “certainly do not have ADHD” (which is not a negative medical diagnosis) were recorded by the test as having ADHD. However, these values were determined on the basis of the respondents’ own statements (have a medical diagnosis of ADHD / certainly do not have ADHD), which on the one hand makes a considerable bias possible and on the other hand - especially with regard to the second statement - may contain significant misrepresentations. In addition, the agreement of the symptom test was compared with an ADHD test tested for validity and reliability, which is used for medical diagnosis. The agreement here was around 96% (also dimensional).
Ultimately, the symptom test is based on the diagnostic manuals of DSM 5, ICD 10 and others. These are determined on the basis of factual questions, just as a doctor would do in a diagnostic interview based on their experience, without these questions being validated in detail. However, a medical diagnosis is based on (several) other questionnaires and tests, which are themselves validated. For this reason, our online tests can never replace a medical diagnosis and only serve as a suggestion for making such a diagnosis.

Diagnostic tests are carried out on selected groups of test subjects (usually according to demographic criteria), who are then diagnosed by specialists at great expense. We cannot afford these (very expensive) procedures for financial reasons. However, this is not unusual for free online screening, which is neither used commercially nor for medical diagnosis. One exception is the ASRS created by the WHO, which is available as an ADHD self-test.

Scientific approaches to the diagnosis of ADHD often achieve a consistency of 85% or less.¹ Trained diagnosticians and experienced clinicians achieved 88% diagnostic agreement.²](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737570/) However, these values are measured against the much stricter methods used to determine the quality criteria of diagnostic tests.