National Norms for the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale in Children

Abstract

Objective To provide national norms and percentiles for both research and clinical scoring modalities of the Vanderbilt Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale (VADPRS) for a representative sample of children ages 5–12 in the United States. Method The five clinical subscales of the VADPRS were completed by 1,570 caregivers of children ages 5–12 in the United States, with children representative of the national population on key demographic variables including race, sex, ethnicity, family income, and family educational level. Descriptive statistics and measures of internal consistency of both dimensional and symptom count scoring were provided for each of the five clinical subscales of the inventory, as well as percentiles and group comparisons for select dimensional scoring subscales based on age and child sex. Results Measures of internal consistency for each subscale using both scoring modalities of the VADPRS ranged from high to acceptable. There were statistically significant differences among the different subscales for both age (ADHD hyperactivity, anxiety/depression) and sex [both presentations of ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)] for the total sample. These differences, however, were modest in magnitude and unlikely to be clinically meaningful. Conclusions This study enhances the research and clinical utility of the VADPRS by providing national norms and percentiles for each of its subscales. Differences between age and sex across the sample were statistically significant for two of the subscales (Hyperactivity and Anxiety/Depression) with additional subscales significant for sex alone (Inattentive and ODD), but these differences were not substantial enough to indicate a need for separate cut-offs for screening purposes.

Quantifying Potential Bias Resulting From Child Age on Screening for Hyperactive/Impulsive Presentations of ADHD

“…The deidentified data was extracted and supplemented with recoded overall percentiles and age-based percentiles (Anderson et al, 2022) using R language (R Core Team, 2022) and prepared for analysis. All subsequent analyses were performed in SPSS v.28, IBM Corp. Baseline descriptive statistics were calculated.…”

“…To evaluate the role of age-based percentiles, VADPRS raw data was recoded into both overall percentiles irrespective of age and age-based percentiles which were recently published (Anderson et al, 2022). Logistic regression, with age as the predictor and ADHD hyperactive or combined diagnosis as the outcome, was performed for each of the groups described above for both the overall percentiles and age-based percentiles, with Nagelkerke’s pseudo- R square statistic ( R 2 ), unstandardized regression coefficient ( B ), and the regression coefficient standard error ( SE ) reported.…”

“…US national norms for the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale (VADPRS) were recently published (Anderson et al, 2022). The VADPRS is a widely used scale in clinical practice for ADHD screening, due in large part to its ease of use and alignment with DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (Wolraich et al, 2003).…”

“…The symptom burden, defined as a higher number and frequency of ADHD diagnostic behaviors, is higher for younger children than for older children, and while only some cases of ADHD remit with aging, the overall symptom burden does decrease. Recently published national norms of the popular Vanderbilt Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale (VADPRS) demonstrated higher symptom burden, as indicated by higher scores on the nine DSM-5 hyperactive/impulsive symptoms of ADHD in younger children than their older peers (i.e., 8.8 in 5–6 year olds vs. 6.5 in 11–12 year olds on VADPRS subscale raw scores) irrespective of ADHD diagnosis (Anderson et al, 2022). This higher rate of hyperactive/impulsive symptoms in younger children raises concerns that perhaps age does play a role in ADHD screening and eventual diagnosis.…”

PICU Survivorship: Factors Affecting Feasibility and Cohort Retention in a Long-Term Outcomes Study

“…The Vanderbilt was administered to parents of children at least 5 years of age. Normative scores data for total Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) score, ADHD inattentive, ADHD hyperactive, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Disorder, and Anxiety/Depression are 3.4, 1.6, 1.8, 1.1, 0.5, and 0.4, respectively [ 45 ].…”