The Conners 4th Edition (Conners 4®) was designed to measure symptoms of and impairments associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), as well as common co-occurring problems and disorders in youth aged 6 to 18 years. The Conners 4 is a revision of the Conners 3rd Edition (Conners 3®; Conners, 2008). In addition to retaining and updating key content from the Conners 3, the Conners 4 includes several new and updated features.

The Conners 4 has been designed to gather information from multiple sources, including one or more parents/guardians (using the Conners 4 Parent form), one or more teachers (using the Conners 4 Teacher form), and the youth themself (using the Conners 4 Self-Report). Parents and teachers can rate a child or student aged 6 to 18 years, whereas the youth self-report is available for youth aged 8 to 18 years. Wherever possible, the scales across the Conners 4 Parent, Teacher, and Self-Report are aligned with each other to facilitate the comparison of information across informants.

The Conners 4 has been developed to have strong psychometric qualities, which are described in chapters 8 (Reliability), 9 (Validity), and 10 (Fairness) of this manual, and to provide meaningful data to support multiple uses. Data from the Conners 4 can be used for preliminary screening purposes or to aid in clinical decision-making, whether making decisions about diagnoses and educational eligibility, or conducting intervention and treatment planning and monitoring. Like the Conners 3, the Conners 4 is well suited for research purposes and can be used as a trusted primary or secondary outcome measure in clinical trials.

This chapter begins by outlining the general components of the Conners 4, followed by the key changes from the Conners 3. An overview of administration, scoring, and report options is then provided, followed by the uses and applicability of the instrument, appropriate user qualifications, and the principles of use and the potential for misuse.