Association of Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS)-61 items with clinical psychiatric diagnosis in adulthood

The Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS) is a widely used retrospective scale in adults presenting for ADHD evaluations which features items relating to childhood symptoms.The aim of this study is to establish if certain childhood symptoms (including ADHD) as identified by the WURS-61 are associated with specific mental health disorders in adulthood.Case-control study of N=630 attending Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) and a control group without mental disorders (N=96).The mean age of the participants was 39.81 (SD 12.94) of which 387 (53.3%) were females. There were no significant differences between cases and controls in terms of age (t= 1.829, df 724, p=.068) and gender (xThere is an association between certain childhood behaviours and risk for later development of personality disorders, and psychoactive substance use. There is overlap of childhood symptoms to those who later diagnosed in adulthood with ADHD, personality disorders, and substance abuse.