تشخیص آسیب شناسی روانی جعلی: مقایسه دو آزمون برای تشخیص آسیب شناسی روانی تمارض با استفاده از یک طراحی شبیه سازی

Malingered psychopathology has the potential to be a costly social problem and there is a need for studies that compare the malingering detection capabilities of tests of psychopathology. This study investigated the capacity of two measures to detect simulated psychopathology. Forty-one first-year psychology students were randomly allocated to experimental groups that included malingering and control conditions. Analogue malingerers were given a financial incentive to simulate believable psychological impairment. Controls received standardised test instructions and the prize incentive, contingent on good effort. In a between-group simulation design, group differences on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the revised Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90-R) were assessed. Group comparisons revealed elevation of the majority of clinical index scores among malingerers and a consistent pattern of results across tests. Analysis of the test operating characteristics of the malingering indices for these measures revealed superior detection of simulated malingering using the PAI, particularly Rogers' Discriminant Function, although classification accuracy of all malingering indexes was improved when adjusted cut-offs were used. Overall, results from this study demonstrate the vulnerability of the PAI and (SCL-90-R) to simulated psychopathology, but also the capacity of these measures to detect such performance when specific indexes are used.

There is a growing body of literature documenting the prevalence of malingered psychopathology (Larrabee, 2003) and the vulnerability of measures of psychopathology to faked or exaggerated performance (Bagby et al., 2002). Several studies have demonstrated that a range of psychopathologies can be faked by simulating malingerers (Lees-Haley and Dunn, 1994;Baity et al., 2007 and Bowen and Bryant, 2006). These disorders include major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and generalised anxiety disorder. The extent to which other psychopathologies can be faked has not been as thoroughly investigated, and there is a need to determine the vulnerability of a broader range of psychopathologies than has occurred to date.