What tools do doctors use to diagnose ADHD?

Answer 1

It depends on the doctor. The gold standard for diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the clinical interview by a qualified professional. That is a vague description, so let me be more specific and break that down into pieces.

Qualified Professional: Typically this is a physician or a psychologist. Pediatricians, family physicians and psychiatrists are the most common types of physicians that tend to be involved in diagnosing this type of illness. For practical reasons, pediatricians and family physicians are forced to be faster in the diagnostic process. These physicians tend to have 15-30 minute appointments that they can allocate to a given patient, so the tools that these physicians use tend to be more focused. The good side of this is that it is faster and less resource intensive. The down side of this is that if there is another diagnosis that is the cause of the inattention, or if there are things that make the diagnosis more complicated (co-existing depression, a recent family move, recent divorce, or many, many many other things), then this short time allotment may not be adequate to get the job done well. Good physicians recognize when this is the case and will often refer the family out to a specialist in these cases. Most frequently this will result in a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist.

Clinical Interview: The clinical interview consists of various elements depending on who is conducting it. A pediatrician (with limited time) will likely allocate his/her time to some focused questions possibly combined with some basic psychological testing. A Psychologist or Psychiatrist should provide a more complete clinical interview which often involves many sources of data. Interviewing the child, interviewing the parent(s), possibly interviewing other family members, observing parent-child interaction, talking to other providers (pediatrician, teacher, etc), psychological testing, and more detailed questions about symptoms, personal history and family history. Speaking of psychological testing, there are many forms, the most common psychological scales that are used specificaly as a diagnostic aid in assisting a physician diagnose ADHD are the Vanderbilt (free) and the Conner's ($), but there are many many of them out there.

So, the tools that doctors use to diagnose ADHD depend on the type of doctor you are seeing and the complexity of the ADHD, but the clinical interview is a necessary component.

Good luck in your endeavors.