Clinical instrument

Attention and Hyperactivity Scale

This scale uses 12 statements from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) to assess traits associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

This is a clinical instrument. It is not publicly self-administered; a clinician assigns it through a secure patient link.

You learn how strongly attention and impulse difficulties run through your personality.

For anyone who wonders whether their everyday attention habits fit an attention-deficit pattern.

It comes from personality research on trait-level attention and impulse difficulties.

Sample result, example data. Illustrative chart with invented scores; it does not describe any real respondent.

What this test is

Welcome. This scale uses 12 statements from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) to assess traits associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The measure

It has 12 items, each answered on a 5-point (Very Inaccurate … Very Accurate) scale.

International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org). Source scale: Span et al., 2002.

At a glance

Items

Response scale

5-point (Very Inaccurate … Very Accurate)

Est. time

~2 min

Access

Assigned only · no per-report charge

What it measures

Twelve statements describe tendencies associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as they appear in adult personality: difficulty staying focused, being easily distracted, leaving tasks unfinished, losing things, feeling restless, acting without thinking and finding it hard to wait. The statements describe everyday habits rather than a clinical history.

Research has increasingly treated ADHD as the extreme of continuous traits that vary across the whole population. Span, Earleywine and Strybel (2002) examined the structure of ADHD symptoms in adults outside clinical settings, and the statements here were drawn from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) to parallel that kind of self-report scale.

The ratings are combined into a single score. Higher scores describe stronger and more frequent difficulties with attention, organization and restlessness; lower scores describe steadier focus. Such tendencies are common in a mild form, and a high score suggests that a fuller assessment may be useful rather than indicating a diagnosis.

The scale is used for self-reflection and in research. On this site, the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS v1.1) follows diagnostic criteria for adult ADHD, the Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS-25) asks about childhood, and the Cognitive Failures scale describes everyday lapses of attention and memory.

Validity evidence

Items operationalize inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity constructs validated in ADHD research. IPIP item selection follows convergent-validity standards with established ADHD constructs.

Example item

“Forget things.”

Very InaccurateModerately InaccurateNeither Accurate nor InaccurateModerately AccurateVery Accurate

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Scoring & interpretation

Your report explains each of your scale scores in plain language.

References

Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models. Personality Psychology in Europe, 7, 7-28.

Sample report preview

The report shows your total score and where it falls across the range of possible scores, followed by a plain-language explanation of what scores in that region describe. Where the instrument has published interpretive bands, the report names the band and what it means. It closes with notes on how to read the result and on when a conversation with a qualified professional may be useful.

Report contents
Section	What it shows
Score	Your scale score, computed with the published scoring key.
Comparisons	How your scores compare with a published comparison group.

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