Psychometric characteristics of ADHD-T-5 in its Dari version among public primary school students in Kabul City, Afghanistan

Introduction One of the key instruments used to assess attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents is the ADHD Rating Scale-5. This study aimed to test the psychometric characteristics of the ADHD Rating Scale-5 teacher version (ADHD-T) in Dari among school-aged children in Kabul City. Methods Face and content validity, explanatory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and reliability of the questionnaire were conducted. The structure, validity, and reliability of the scales were evaluated using the translated versions of the ADHD-T questionnaires for the assessment of ADHD in children. Teachers completed the ADHD-T-Dari on behalf of three hundred and fifty-eight public primary school students. Results Face validity, content quality, and internal consistency of the ADHD-T-Dari were excellent. Significant collinearity was found between the items of the inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity domains of the ADHD-T-Dari. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin index was 0.913 and was satisfactory. The two-factor model of the scale showed a better fit with an RMSEA of 0.065, a CMIN/ df of 20.501, and a CFI of 905 compared to the one- and three-factor models of ADHD-T-Dari. The Cronbach’s alpha for the total ADHD-T-Dari scale with 18 items was 0.898, while it was 0.851 and 0.847 for the inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity subscales with 9 items each. Conclusion The exploratory and CFA showed that the psychometric qualities have strong concept validity and very good psychometric properties with good reliability. Therefore, the ADHD-T-Dari is valid, reliable, and suitable for the assessment of ADHD symptoms in Afghan school children and adolescents.