Validation in Spanish population of the Wender-Utah rating scale for the retrospective evaluation in adults of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in early ages

Introduction, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neuropsychiatric disorders in the early ages. Recently, it has been verified that presence of ADHD in early ages could be a vulnerability factor for developing different psychiatric disorders in adults, such as substance abuse and personality disorders. The retrospective diagnosis of this disorder in early ages of adult patients is specially problematic. Objective. The Wender-Utah Rating Scale (WURS) has been translated and adaptated with the purpose of validate it in spanish population. Patients and method. It was administrated the questionnaire to 266 patients of an Addictive Behaviours Unit. In 82 cases it was realized a clinical diagnosis of ADHD in early ages, and others 184 cases did not show antecedents of this disorder. Results. 25 items which better discriminate cases from controls were chosen. The Cronbach's coefficient for this subscale was 0.94. The cut-off 32 optimizated sensibility (91.5%) and specificity (90.8%). The positive and negative predictive values was 81% and 96% respectively. The total of incorrect classificated subjects was 9%. Conclusions. Our version of the WURS shows an adequate psychometric characteristics, that indicate an adequate validity for the detection of adult patients with antecedents of ADHD in early ages. In our population of patients with addictive behaviours, it has demonstrated to be very useful to differentiate an important subgroup of patients with antecedents of ADHD in early ages. It would be very interesting the replication of this studies in other psychopathological and neurological conditions.