Base Rates of Negative Response Bias and Malingered Neurocognitive Dysfunction among Criminal Defendants Referred for Neuropsychological Evaluation

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may form the basis for disability or worker's compensation claims or a personal injury lawsuit. While now achieving widespread acceptance among treating professionals and the public, PTSD is the subject of several controversies and the possibility of faking in a compensation context. There appears to be a dramatic split among mental health professionals who write primarily from a treatment or plaintiff perspective and those who take a more skeptical approach. This article reviews recent developments in the assessment of malingering, including symptom validity measures, and applies them to the assessment of PTSD. Recommendations for current practice are provided.

Section: Self-report Inventories and Structured Interviewsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Assessing Response Style and Malingering

Rubenzer¹

2009

“…Bianchini et al (2006) reported comparable rates of failure on malingering tests and other validity indicators and diagnosable malingering in TBI and found that rates varied with the magnitude of incentive. Ardolf et al (2007) and Chafetz (2008) reported base rates of 50% or more in a criminal forensic settings and Social Security Disability evaluations, respectively. Rates in patients claiming injuries due to toxic exposures were in a similar range (Greve et al 2006a, b).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

The MMPI-2 Symptom Validity Scale (FBS) Is an Empirically Validated Measure of Overreporting in Personal Injury Litigants and Claimants: Reply to Butcher et al. (2008)

Ben‐Porath

Greve

Bianchini

et al. 2009

We address issues raised by Butcher et al. (Psychological Injury and the Law 1:191-209, 2008) in their critique of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Symptom Validity Scale (FBS) and show that their analyses and conclusions are based on faulty premises, a misunderstanding of basic concepts in the assessment of overreporting, a selective review of the literature and mischaracterization of the findings they do cite, problematic analyses of a dataset that had already been similarly analyzed, and a flawed analysis of a legal case they discuss. We complement the review of existing research with some new findings that provide further empirical support and clarification of current interpretive recommendations for proper use of the FBS in evaluations of personal injury litigants and claimants. purport to explore potential bias in Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2 assessments using the Symptom Validity Scale (FBS) 1 . They consider issues related to the item content of the scale, methods used to identify malingering in FBS studies, evidence of the reliability and validity of the scale, and questions about recommended cutoffs for FBS interpretation. also seek to present evidence of the false positive rate of the FBS in two samples of individuals they believe to be at risk for mischaracterization as "malingerers" based on scores on the scale. Finally, they discuss the results of a recent Frye hearing in Florida, following which a trial judge excluded testimony based on FBS.In this rebuttal, we address the issues raised by and show that their analyses and conclusions are based on faulty premises, a misunderstanding of basic concepts in the assessment of overreporting, a selective review of the literature and mischaracterization of the findings they do cite, problematic analyses of a dataset (Butcher et al. 2003) that had already been similarly analyzed, and an incomplete analysis of a court case they discuss. Before turning to the more specific problems with Butcher et al.'s (2008) critique, we begin with a discussion and illustration of basic conceptual flaws in their article.

“…Chafetz (2008) reported that 45.8-59.7% of adults seeking Social Security disability met criteria for at least probable malingering (i.e., failed two or more validity indicators), with the results varying on samples and SVTs utilized. Ardoff et al (2007) investigated the base rates of negative response bias (i.e., malingering) in a criminal forensic setting. These authors found that among the 105 criminal defendants consecutively referred for neuropsychological assessment, 32.4% met the criteria for probable malingering and 21.9% met criteria for definite malingering, which combined for a definite/probable base rate of malingering of 54.3%.…”

Section: Special Considerations Response Bias Symptom Validity Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traumatic Brain Injury Across the Lifespan: A Neuropsychological Tutorial for Attorneys

Richards¹,

Kirk

2010

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are prevalent across the lifespan and occur from multiple sources (e.g., motor vehicle accidents, falls, sports injuries, assaults, abuse). Because many of these injuries are compensable, plaintiff and defense counsel often rely on the expertise of a forensic neuropsychologist to help establish or refute the claim of the presence of TBI, or the degree of severity claimed. In this paper, we offer a tutorial in which we provide information that attorneys need to know in handling of TBI cases: We address definitions, epidemiology, pathophysiology, guidelines for grading TBI severity, and treatment. Also, we cover moderating variables that affect TBI outcome and recovery and specific forensic issues that may arise in the neuropsychological evaluation (e.g., symptom magnification, malingering). Although the focus is on mild TBI in adults, we also cover the more serious variants of moderate and severe adult TBI and include a separate all-severity section on pediatric populations. We consider the special challenges the attorney faces, for example, in establishing causality.