Brief Communication The Child Behavior Checklist Together With the ADHD Rating Scale Can Diagnose ADHD in Korean

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical validities and efficiencies of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the ADHD Rating Scale-IV (ARS) in identifying children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Korean community-based samples. Method: A large sample of elementary school students (n = 1668) participated in this study. We used the CBCL and the ARS as the screening instruments. Diagnoses were determined by clinical psychiatric interviews and confirmed by DSM-IV–based structured interviews. Results: Of the 46 subjects who underwent clinical psychiatric interviews, 33 were diagnosed as having ADHD. A T score of 60 with regard to the Attention Problems profile of the CBCL resulted in a reasonable level of sensitivity or positive predictive value in the diagnosis of ADHD. In both the parent and teacher reports of the ARS, 90th percentile cut-off points resulted in a high level of predictive value. The highest levels of specificity and positive predictive value were obtained when we combined the CBCL (T 60 in Attention Problems) and the ARS (parent–teacher total 90th percentile) reports. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the combined use of the CBCL and the ARS could serve as a rapid and useful clinical method of predicting or even diagnosing children with ADHD in epidemiologic case definitions. (Can J Psychiatry 2005;50:802–805) Information on author affiliations appears at the end of the article