This study examined the persistent effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performance. Since poor effort can contaminate results in populations with incentive to perform poorly, performance validity was explicitly assessed and controlled for using multiple well-validated cognitive malingering indicators. Participants were 109 patients with mild TBI and 67 patients with moderate-to-severe TBI seen for neuropsychological evaluation at least one year post injury. Patients with diffuse neurological impairment and healthy controls were included for comparison. Results suggested a dose-response effect of TBI severity on WCST performance in patients providing good effort; the mild TBI group did not differ from controls while increased levels of impairment were observed in the moderate-to-severe TBI group. Effort during testing had a larger impact on WCST performance than mild or moderate-to-severe TBI. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

is the International Honor So ci ety in Psychology, found ed in 1929 for the pur pos es of encouraging, stim u lat ing, and maintaining ex cel lence in schol ar ship, and advancing the sci ence of psy chol ogy. Mem ber ship is open to gradu ate and under gradu ate students 58 SUMMER 2015 PSI CHI JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

The Modified Somatic Perception Questionnaire (MSPQ) and the Pain Disability Index (PDI) are both popular clinical screening instruments in general orthopedic, rheumatologic, and neurosurgical clinics and are useful for identifying pain patients whose physical symptom presentations and disability may be non-organic. Previous studies found both to accurately detect malingered pain presentations; however, the generalizability of these results is not clear. This study used a criterion groups validation design (retrospective cohort of patients with chronic pain, n = 328) with a simulator group (college students, n = 98) to determine the accuracy of the MSPQ and PDI in detecting Malingered Pain Related Disability. Patients were grouped based on independent psychometric evidence of MPRD. Results showed that MSPQ and PDI scores were not associated with objective medical pathology. However, they accurately differentiated Not-MPRD from MPRD cases. Diagnostic statistics associated with a range of scores are presented for application to individual cases. Data from this study can inform the clinical management of chronic pain patients by screening for psychological overlay and malingering, thus alerting clinicians to the possible presence of psychosocial obstacles to effective treatment and triggering further psychological assessment and/or treatment.

The symptom reports of individuals with chronic pain are multidimensional (e.g., emotional, cognitive, and somatic) and significantly contribute to increased morbidity and lost work productivity. When pain occurs in the context of a legally compensable event, reliable assessment of a patient's multifactorial symptom experience during psychological or neuropsychological evaluations is a necessity. The Validity Scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) have been shown useful in identifying symptom overreporting and feigning within chronic pain samples and a number of studies have emerged supporting the use of the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) in the detection of simulated or feigned impairment in a variety of populations. To date, only 1 other study exists examining the ability of the MMPI-2-RF to detect exaggerated complaints using a strict operationalization of malingering exclusive to chronic pain samples. The purpose of this study was to examine the classification accuracy of MMPI-2-RF Validity Scales in a group of patients with chronic pain using a criterion-groups design. The final sample consisted of 501 clinical chronic pain patients assigned to groups based on the Bianchini, Greve, and Glynn (2005) criteria for Malingered Pain-Related Disability (MPRD). Results showed that all MMPI-2-RF Validity Scales differentiated malingerers from nonmalingerers with a high degree of accuracy. At cut-offs associated with ≥95% Specificity, Sensitivities ranged from 15% (Fs) to 60% (Response Bias Scale; RBS). This study demonstrates that the MMPI-2-RF Validity Scales are capable of differentiating intentional symptom exaggeration from genuine complaints in a sample of incentivized chronic pain patients. (PsycINFO Database Record

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The present study used criterion groups validation to determine the ability of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) modifier indices to detect malingering in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Patients with TBI who met criteria for malingered neurocognitive dysfunction (MND) were compared to those who showed no indications of malingering. Data were collected from 108 TBI patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation. Base rate (BR) scores were used for MCMI-III modifier indices: Disclosure, Desirability, and Debasement. Malingering classification was based on the Slick, Sherman, and Iverson (1999) criteria for MND. TBI patients were placed in one of three groups: MND (n = 55), not-MND (n = 26), or Indeterminate (n = 26).The not-MND group had lower modifier index scores than the MND group. At scores associated with a 4% false-positive (FP) error rate, sensitivity was 47% for Disclosure, 51% for Desirability, and 55% for Debasement. Examination of joint classification analysis demonstrated 54% sensitivity at cutoffs associated with 0% FP error rate. Results suggested that scores from all MCMI-III modifier indices are useful for identifying intentional symptom exaggeration in TBI. Debasement was the most sensitive of the three indices. Clinical implications are discussed.

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Meyers, Millis, and Volkert [Meyers, J. E., Millis, S. R., & Volkert, K. (2002). A validity index for the MMPI-2. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 17, 157-169] developed a method to detect malingering in chronic pain patients using seven scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). This method may be impractical because two of the scales (Obvious minus Subtle and Dissimulation-revised) are not reported by the commercially available Pearson computerized scoring system. The current study recalculated the Meyers Index using the five Pearson-provided scales in the chronic pain data sets of Meyers et al. [Meyers, J. E., Millis, S. R., & Volkert, K. (2002). A validity index for the MMPI-2. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 17, 157-169] and Bianchini, Etherton, Greve, Heinly, and Meyers [Bianchini, K. J., Etherton, J. L., Greve, K. W., Heinly, M. T., & Meyers, J. E. (in press). Classification accuracy of MMPI-2 validity scales in the detection of pain-related malingering: A known-groups approach. Assessment], and the traumatic brain injury data of Greve, Bianchini, Love, Brennan, and Heinly [Greve, K. W., Bianchini, K. J., Love, J. M., Brennan, A., & Heinly, M. T. (2006). Sensitivity and specificity of MMPI-2 validity scales and indicators to malingered neurocognitive dysfunction in traumatic brain injury. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 20, 491-512]. Classification accuracy of the abbreviated Meyers Index was comparable to the original. These findings demonstrate that the abbreviated Meyers Index can be used as a substitute of the original Meyers Index without decrements in classification accuracy.