User:Kennyle78/Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scale

Leads
The Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scale (VADRS) is a psychological self-report assessment tool for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and their effects on behavior and academic performance in children ages 6–12. This measure was developed by Mark Wolraich at the Oklahoma Health Sciences Center a nd i nc lu de s it em s re la te d to o th er d is or de rs o ft en c om or bi d wi th ADHD. There are two versions available: a parent form that contains 55 questions, and a teacher form that contains 43 questions. Shorter follow-up versions of the VADRS are also available for parents and teachers and consists of 26 questions with an additional 12 side effect measures. Comparing scores from the different versions of the VADRS with other psychological measures have suggested the scores have good but limited reliability and validity across multiple samples. The VADRS has only been recently developed, however, so clinical application of the measure is limited.

Development and history
The VADRS was developed by Wolraich with the aim to add common comorbid conditions associated with ADHD that was lacking from previous assessments. As public awareness of ADHD has increased, epidemiological studies have found a prevalence rate of 4-12% in children of ages 6-12 throughout the United States. Not only is ADHD the most commonly encountered childhood-onset disorder in neurodevelopment, there is also a high comorbidity rate linking ADHD with other behavioral, emotional and learning problems and disabilities. As a need to obtain a defined population sample due to a lack of funds, Wolraich invented the teacher VADRS. The teacher rating scales allowed Wolraich to have all the kids in one class be sampled by one teacher and to increase communication between physicians and teachers.

Impact
There is a high comorbidity of learning disorders (LDs) in children with ADHD, and for that reason the VADRS has been studied to determine if the performance item questions on the VARS can reliably predict if the child with ADHD has a comorbid LD (e.g. math, reading, spelling LDs). Results of a ROC (receiver operating characteristic) analysis show that children with ADHD can be reliably ruled out from have a comorbid LD based on the performance items on the VARS. This is clinically useful because it allows those without LDs to be ruled out and therefore reduce the amount of unnecessary referrals to healthcare professionals.

Limitations
The VADRS is a fairly new instrument with incomplete data on reliability and validity, and consequently, its use in a clinical population has not been fully analyzed. Additionally, normative data has only been collected in a localized population and only for the teacher version. Relating to the measure itself, its comorbidity subscales are not based on the DSM-IV like the rest of the measure, and the current incarnation of the VADRS has not been adapted for DSM-5 criteria.