title: German Validation of the Conners 3® Rating Scales for Parents, Teachers, and Children.
abstract: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rating scales such as the Conners’ Rating Scales (CRS) are valuable adjuncts for diagnosis, since they offer parent, teacher, and self-ratings of children susceptible for ADHD. Even though the scales are widely used internationally, cross-cultural comparability has rarely been verified, and culture and language invariance have only been presumed. The Conners 3(®) rating scales are the updated version of the CRS, though hardly any studies report the psychometric properties apart from the results published in the test edition itself. To our knowledge there are no studies on the various adaptations of the Conners 3(®) in other languages.
  
  
  
  The German translations of the Conners 3(®) were completed by 745 children, 953 parents, and 741 teachers (children’s age range: 6–18 years, mean: 11.74 years of age). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on content scale items were conducted to obtain the factor structure for the German version and to replicate the factor structure of the original American models. Cronbach’s α was calculated to establish internal consistency.
  
  
  
  The exploratory analyses for the German model resulted in factor structures globally different from the American model, though confirmatory analyses revealed very good model fi ts with highly satisfying Cronbach’s αs. We were able to provide empirical evidence for the subscale Inattention which had only hypothetically been derived by Conners (2008).
  
  
  
  Even though the exploratory analyses resulted in different factor structures, the confirmatory analyses have such excellent psychometric properties that use of the German adaptation of the Conners 3(®) is justifi ed in international multicenter studies.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Philipps-University Marburg.
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Christiansen
authors.affiliation: 2 Faculty of Medicine, Department of General Practice/Family Medicine, Philipps-University Marburg.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hirsch
authors.affiliation: 3 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Renate
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Drechsler
authors.affiliation: 4 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Sina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wanderer
authors.affiliation: 5 Child Neuropsychology Section/ Translational Neuroscience in Psychiatry and Neurology; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Eva-Lotte
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Knospe
authors.affiliation: 5 Child Neuropsychology Section/ Translational Neuroscience in Psychiatry and Neurology; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Günther
authors.affiliation: 6 Department of Pediatric Neurology, University Children›s Hospital Tübingen.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lidzba
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment; D014175:Translating; D014481:United States
keywords: ADHD assessment; Conners’ Rating Scales; psychometric properties; validation; German adaptation