Self-observation questionnaire
ADHD test for adults
Free online ADHD test for adults, no sign-up: 28 items, 4 reading axes, an immediate result, with the method and the sources published.
1What this questionnaire observes
1.1The reading axes
Your answers are spread across 4 axes, each computed on its own.
| Reading axis | Items |
|---|---|
| Sustained attention | 7 |
| Organisation and planning | 7 |
| Restlessness and impulsivity | 7 |
| Emotional regulation | 7 |
- Each item feeds a single axis: the column total is the number of items in the questionnaire.
1.2Limits of this questionnaire
This questionnaire does not measure how long your difficulties have been present, even though their persistence since childhood is central to an assessment by a health professional. It does not measure their real impact on your life either, nor the other possible explanations: sleep debt, anxiety, thyroid conditions, a prolonged period of overload. These elements are central to a professional assessment, and none of them is within reach of an online questionnaire.
2How this questionnaire is built
The items in this questionnaire are written for Brain Quiz from the published literature in the field. A published scale is reproduced where its licence expressly allows it; here, the questionnaire is the site's own.
The 28 items in this questionnaire were written for Brain Quiz from the published literature on attention difficulties in adults. No published scale is reproduced, in whole or in part: not the World Health Organization ASRS, not the CAARS, not the DIVA, not the WURS. The references below document the field being explored, they are not the source of the items.
Sources. 5 references document the field observed, each one opening from its identifier.1,2,3,4,5
Publisher. Brain Quiz writes, publishes and maintains this questionnaire. Who writes this site
3The field observed
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder affects an estimated 2.8% of adults according to the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys published in 2017. This free self-observation questionnaire presents 28 situations across four axes and takes about eight minutes. It can neither confirm nor rule out a disorder.
How does attention difficulty show up in adulthood? The adult picture differs from the childhood one. Visible physical restlessness often recedes and gives way to inner restlessness, to trouble starting and finishing things, and to sharper emotional reactivity. Executive functions, meaning planning, task initiation, working memory and time estimation, are the dimensions most often reported in the adult literature. The updated European consensus statement coordinated by Kooij and colleagues, published in 2019, describes these presentations and stresses that they persist well into adult life.
Four axes structure this questionnaire. Sustained attention covers holding concentration, sensitivity to interruption and picking a task back up once it has been dropped. Organisation covers planning, getting started, meeting deadlines and how long the systems you set up actually survive. Restlessness and impulsivity cover the need to move, speaking out of turn, waiting and decisions made on the spot. Emotional regulation covers how strong reactions are, how quickly things settle again and how long rumination lasts. Each axis gets its own score, which avoids reducing the way a person functions to a single number.
Each item describes a concrete situation and you say how often it matches your experience, on a five-point scale running from never to almost always. Eight items are worded the other way round: a high answer lowers the score there. That design limits the tendency to agree mechanically with every statement, which inflates the results of most online questionnaires. The total is rescaled to 100 and placed in one of four reading bands. The score and the axis breakdown stay visible with no account and no payment.
What this questionnaire does not say matters as much as what it shows. It does not measure how long the difficulties have been present, even though their persistence since childhood is central to a professional assessment. It does not measure their real impact on daily life either, nor the other possible explanations: sleep debt, anxiety, thyroid conditions, a prolonged period of overload. Two people can reach the same score for very different reasons, and untangling that is exactly what a conversation with a professional is for.
The questionnaire is free, online, and asks for no sign-up. Nothing is required before the result appears: no email address, no account. Saving the result and ordering a detailed report are offered afterwards and remain optional. The minimum age is 16, because the patterns described in adults do not transfer to a younger audience.
The 28 items were written for Brain Quiz from the published literature on attention difficulties in adults. No published scale is reproduced, in whole or in part. The World Health Organization ASRS, described by Kessler and colleagues in 2005, the CAARS and the DIVA are cited as landmarks of the field, never as the source of the items: reproduction rights for a use such as ours have not been established. Full references, with their DOI or publisher link, appear on the methodology page. The NICE guideline NG87, published in the United Kingdom and last amended in 2019, describes what a full assessment involves.
Three further pages complete this one. The ADHD test for women explores the so-called internalised presentation, compensation strategies and late identification, with items that share nothing with these. The guide on whether online ADHD tests are accurate explains what a self-report questionnaire can and cannot indicate. The guide on the adult ADHD assessment pathway sets out the concrete steps, who is involved and what waiting times look like in practice.
What should you do with the result? If it is low, it simply means your answers do not bring out a consistent set of traits. If it is high, it means your answers show traits frequently associated with attention difficulties in adults, and it gives you a concrete starting point for a conversation with a doctor or a psychologist. You can save the axis breakdown and bring it to the appointment: it is usually far more useful than an isolated number.
4Frequently asked questions
A questionnaire on its own cannot tell you. What is observable is how often certain difficulties occur: holding attention, starting tasks, estimating time, reacting emotionally. This questionnaire places your answers on those four axes in about eight minutes. The next step belongs to a doctor or a psychologist, who will go back over the history of the difficulties since childhood and look at other possible explanations.
No. This questionnaire can neither confirm nor rule out a disorder. A professional assessment rests on an in-depth interview, on the history of the difficulties since childhood, on their real impact and on the review of other possible causes. What this questionnaire adds is a structured reading by axis, useful for walking into an appointment with concrete material rather than a vague impression.
Yes. The 28 questions, the total score and the axis breakdown are all available with no account, no email address and no payment. Nothing is asked before the result appears. You can then choose to save your result so you can find it later, or to order a paid detailed report. Both options are optional and neither gates the free result.
The questionnaire contains 28 items spread across four axes, seven per axis, and takes about eight minutes. Each item describes a concrete situation, rated on a five-point scale running from never to almost always. You can go back at any time to change an answer. The minimum age is 16 on every questionnaire in the serious universe.
In children, visible physical restlessness is often the most noticeable feature. In adults it frequently recedes and gives way to inner restlessness. The difficulties that weigh most then become planning, starting tasks, estimating time and regulating emotion. Many adults compensated for years before those difficulties were noticed and named by anyone around them.
The items were written for Brain Quiz from the published literature on attention difficulties in adults. No published scale is reproduced, in whole or in part, because reproduction rights have not been established. The five references listed on the methodology page document the field being explored, each with a DOI or a publisher link, but they are not the source of the items.
Estimating duration is a difficulty frequently described in adults. Barkley, Murphy and Bush published a measurement of time interval reproduction errors in young adults concerned by attention difficulties in the journal Neuropsychology in 2001. In practice it shows up as underestimating how long tasks take, repeated lateness and missed deadlines, with willpower playing no part in it.
The two questionnaires explore the same field with entirely different items. This one covers sustained attention, organisation, restlessness and emotional regulation. The ADHD test for women covers internal distraction, compensation strategies, perceived sensitivity to rejection and the load of everyday life. Neither is restricted to one gender, and nothing stops you taking both.
5References
Each entry carries its authors, year, title, journal and identifier.
- Kessler, R. C., Adler, L., Ames, M., Demler, O., Faraone, S., Hiripi, E., Howes, M. J., Jin, R., Secnik, K., Spencer, T., Ustun, T. B., & Walters, E. E. (2005). The World Health Organization adult ADHD self-report scale (ASRS): a short screening scale for use in the general population. Psychological Medicine, 35(2), 245-256. doi:10.1017/S0033291704002892 opens in a new tab ↑
- Kooij, J. J. S., Bijlenga, D., Salerno, L., Jaeschke, R., Bitter, I., Balazs, J., et al. (2019). Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD. European Psychiatry, 56, 14-34. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.11.001 opens in a new tab ↑
- Fayyad, J., Sampson, N. A., Hwang, I., Adamowski, T., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Al-Hamzawi, A., et al. (2017). The descriptive epidemiology of DSM-IV Adult ADHD in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys. ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders, 9(1), 47-65. doi:10.1007/s12402-016-0208-3 opens in a new tab ↑
- Barkley, R. A., Murphy, K. R., & Bush, T. (2001). Time perception and reproduction in young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Neuropsychology, 15(3), 351-360. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.15.3.351 opens in a new tab ↑
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (2019). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management (NICE guideline NG87). London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493361/ opens in a new tab ↑
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