Wie häufig treten Simulation und Aggravation in der Begutachtung auf? Schätzungen von Laien

Prevalence Estimates of Symptom Feigning and Malingering in Spain

Symptom feigning and malingering should be evaluated in forensic contexts due to their important socio-economic consequences. Despite this, to date, there is little research in Spain that evaluates its prevalence. The aim of this study was to investigate this issue using the perception of the general population, students, and professionals of medicine and forensic psychology. Three adapted questionnaires were applied to a total of 1003 participants (61.5% women) from 5 different groups. Approximately two-thirds of participants reported knowing someone who feigned symptoms, and one-third disclosed feigning symptoms themselves in the past. Headache/migraine, neck pain, and anxious-depressive symptoms were the most commonly chosen. Experts in psychology and forensic medicine estimated a prevalence of 20 to 40% of non-credible symptom presentations in their work settings and reported not having sufficient means to assess the distorted presentation of symptoms with certainty. Professionals and laypersons alike acknowledge that non-credible symptom presentations (like feigning or malingering) are relevant in Spain and occur at a non-trivial rate, which compares with estimates in other parts of the world.

Symptom and Performance Validity Assessment in European Countries: an Update

In 2013, a special issue of the Spanish journal Clínica y Salud published a review on symptom and performance validity assessment in European countries (Merten et al. in Clínica y Salud, 24(3), 129–138, 2013). At that time, developments were judged to be in their infancy in many countries, with major publication activities stemming from only four countries: Spain, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Germany. As an introduction to a special issue of Psychological Injury and Law, this is an updated report of developments during the last 10 years. In that period of time, research activities have reached a level where it is difficult to follow all developments; some validity measures were newly developed, others were adapted for European languages, and validity assessment has found a much stronger place in real-world evaluation contexts. Next to an update from the four nations mentioned above, reports are now given from Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, too.

Do You Know People Who Feign? Proxy Respondents About Feigned Symptoms

We asked students, clinicians, and people from the general population attending a public university lecture (n = 401) whether they knew others who (had) feigned symptoms. We also asked about the type of symptoms and the motives involved. A slight majority of proxy respondents (59%) reported that they knew a person who (had) feigned symptoms, and 34% knew a person who had admitted to them having feigned symptoms. According to our respondents, the most often feigned symptoms were headache/migraine, common cold/fever, and stomachache/nausea, and the most important reasons for doing so were sick leave from work, excusing a failure, and seeking attention from others. We conclude that feigning is part of the normal behavioral repertoire of people and has little to do with deviant personality traits and/or criminal motives. Also, the current emphasis in the neuropsychological literature on malingering, i.e., feigning motivated by external incentives, might be one-sided given that psychological motives, notably seeking attention from others and excuse making, seem to be important determinants of everyday feigning.

Equivalence of the German and the French Versions of the Self-Report Symptom Inventory

Abstract. Against the background of the growing importance of symptom validity assessment both in forensic and clinical or rehabilitation contexts, a new instrument for identifying overreporting was developed. In order to study the equivalence of the German and the French versions, we divided the item pool of the Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI) into two presumably equivalent half-forms. A sample of 40 adult bilingual Swiss nationals with a mean age of 39.9 years responded honestly to one of the half-forms in German and to the other in French. In a subsequent experimental malingering condition, they were asked to simulate sequelae of a whiplash injury and to respond to the SRSI again. In both conditions, they also filled out the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS). The results showed no differences between the two language versions in both conditions. Classification accuracy was very high (100% specificity, 90% sensitivity for the standard cutoff score). Reliability estimates were 0.93 for endorsement of genuine symptoms and 0.97 for pseudosymptom endorsement. In the malingering condition, the correlation between the number of reported pseudosymptoms and the SIMS scores was 0.69. The current results add to the database available for the SRSI and support the appropriateness of the French version.