Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (DBD) Rating Scale for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Normative Values and Percentile Charts for Nigerian Children Aged 6 to 15 Years.

Abstract

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common and persistent neurobehavioural disorders of childhood yet little is known about it in Nigeria especially at the community level where these children should be identified and referred appropriately. The absence of norms or charts based on a screening tool makes the identification of these children difficult. The disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) rating scale for ADHD was therefore used to generate normative values and charts for Nigerian children aged 6 to 15 years in Benin City, Nigeria. A total of 1384 subjects randomly selected from six primary schools were evaluated using the DBD rating scale for ADHD. Teachers were asked to rate the selected subjects on a scale of 1 to 4 on ADHD related symptoms. The raw scores were entered into SPSS 11.0 for Windows (2003) and the mean and 2 standard deviation (50th and 95th percentile respectively) were calculated and plotted on graph. The 95th percentile was used as cut-off point for determination of the presence of ADHD. There were 732 (52.90%) boys and 652 (47.10%) girls. The Mean ± SD age of the study population was 8.78 ± 1.96 years. The mean age for boys and girls were similar, 8.87 ± 2.01 (boys) compared to 8.67 ± 1.89 (girls). The mean ± 2SD of the total ADHD score for the study population was 12.41 ± 32.88. The mean ± 2SD of the total ADHD scores for girls (10.2 ± 19) was lower than for boys 13.3 ± 22.6. The normative values and charts for age and sex are presented. This is the first normative values and charts for the screening of ADHD based on the disruptive behavior disorder screening questionnaire for children in Nigeria. The use of these charts and norms will no doubt make the identification of these children easier especially at the community level and strengthen the School health program in Nigeria.

Key words: Children, normative values, Disruptive disorder rating scale, ADHD