The Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), developed by Vincent E Ziegler and popularized by Robert Young, is an eleven-item multiple choice diagnostic questionnaire which psychiatrists use to measure the severity of manic episodes in children and young adults. The scale was originally developed for use in the evaluation of adult patients with bipolar disorder, but has since been modified for use in pediatric patients.
A similar scale was later developed to allow clinicians to interview parents about their children's symptoms, in order to ascertain a better diagnosis of mania in children. This parent version (P-YMRS) can be completed by a parent or a teacher to determine whether a child should receive further evaluation from a psychologist or psychiatrist. Clinical studies have demonstrated the reliability and validity of the parent version of the scale, which has been found to provide “clinically meaningful information about mood disorders in youth." The P-YMRS does succeed in identifying most cases of childhood bipolar disorder, and it has an extremely high false positive rate.