Child Mania Rating Scale – Parent Version (CMRS-P)

The Child Mania Rating Scale–Parent Version (CMRS-P) is a parent-report rating scale designed to assess manic symptoms in children and adolescents.¹ Adapted from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-4) criteria for mania, the CMRS-P provides a reliable and validated method to differentiate pediatric mania from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).^1,2

The 21 items of the CMRS-P align with DSM-4 criteria for a manic episode. The CMRS-P captures elevated mood, hyperactivity, distractibility, and irritability across home and social contexts.^1,3 Parents rate how often these behaviors have been observed in their child over the past month using a four-point Likert scale (0 = Never/Rarely, 1 = Sometimes, 2 = Often, 3 = Very Often).³ The items of the CMRS-P are developmentally phrased for children.² Scoring involves summing all item responses. A score of 20 or greater is considered to differentiate children with bipolar I disorder (BP-1) from children with ADHD and healthy controls.^1,2

In a study on its psychometric properties, the CMRS-P demonstrated an internal consistency reliability (correlations coefficient: 0.96), high correlations with clinician-administered interview measures for diagnosing pediatric mania (correlations range: 0.78 to 0.83), and an ability to accurately differentiate pediatric bipolar disorder from ADHD and healthy controls greater than 90% of the time.^1,2,4

The brief form of the CMRS-P, Brief CMRS-P, is comprised of 10 of the 21 items on the long form of the CMRS-P. The 10-item CMRS-P showed comparable accuracy to the 21-item CMRS-P in differentiating children with pediatric bipolar disorder from children with ADHD and healthy controls.²

The CMRS-P is intended as a screening instrument for current mania, not a diagnostic tool.¹  A complete diagnostic evaluation should be performed to confirm the diagnosis of BP-1.⁴