Background: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a severely impairing neurodevelopmental disorder which involves the problem with attention, concentration and impacts significantly on emotional, social and psychologically affecting the health care system. Parental stress has been proning globally with the children of ADHD.

Objective: To assess the reliability and validity of PSI-SF Arabic instrument in parents of ADHD patients.

Design: This is a cross-sectional observational study.

Setting: King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC), Riyadh.

Methods: We have recruited 198 parents with ADHD children under/below 18 years of age. An Arabic version of 36-item parenting stress index-short format (PSI-SF) instrument was used.

Main outcome measures: Reliability and construct validity of Arabic PSI-SF instrument.

Sample size: 198 parents of ADHD children.

Results: The internal consistent reliability of 36 items was ranging from 0.939 to 0.942 (for all the 36 items). The average value of internal consistency is 0.942 (95% CI: 0.930 to 0.953). The KMO measure was 0.907 and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < 0.0001). The rotated factors were: parental distress-PD; parent child dysfunctional interactions-PCDI and difficulty child-DC.

Conclusion: An Arabic version of PSI-SF shows good validity and reliability which can be used in the detection of parental stress in parents of ADHD children.

Limitations: As the study subjects were from one referral hospital, further studies are required to test the validity and reliability of Arabic PSI-SF in different settings.

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, parenting stress index-short format, reliability, validity.