HealthDay News — The Child Behavior Checklist-Attention Problem (CBCL-AP) scale and Conners Rating Scale-Revised (CRS-R) yield moderate sensitivity for diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents, according to research published online in Pediatrics.
Ling-Yin Chang, PhD, from Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, and colleagues compared the diagnostic performance of CBCL-AP and CRS-R in diagnosing ADHD in children. Data were reviewed from 14 and 11 studies on CBCL-AP and CRS-R, respectively, conducted in pediatric populations, compared with a defined reference standard.
The researchers found that the pooled sensitivities were 0.77, 0.75, 0.72, and 0.83 for CBCL-AP, Conners Parent Rating Scale-Revised, Conners Teacher Rating Scale-Revised, and Conners Abbreviated Symptom Questionnaire (ASQ), respectively. The diagnostic performance of the various scales did not differ significantly. Heterogeneity in the specificity of the CBCL-AP was explained by study location, age of participants, and percentage of female participants.