Assessing feigning with the Feigning Evaluation INtegrating Sources (FEINS) in a forensic psychiatric sample.

Evaluators of examinees in forensic contexts must consider the potential for falsified or exaggerated psychiatric symptoms and/or cognitive deficits. A number of validated assessment tools assist evaluators in identifying those examinees who feign impairment; however, no comprehensive method has been established for consolidating data from multiple tests, interviews, behavioral observations, and collateral sources. The current pilot study preliminarily examined the interrater reliability and validity of a new forensic assessment tool, the Feigning Evaluation INtegrating Sources (FEINS), developed to guide evaluators in the comprehensive assessment of feigning by adding structure to the collection of relevant data.

Assessing Inpatient Victimization Risk Among Insanity Acquittees Using the HCR-20.

Victimization of individuals with mental illness may involve serious emotional or physical injury to already vulnerable persons. Further, victimization may contribute to subsequent victimization experiences, exacerbate psychiatric symptoms, and prolong hospitalization, among other undesirable secondary outcomes. Nonetheless, limited prior research has focused on predicting victimization in forensic psychiatric settings, and no research has attempted to do so with the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20 Version 3 (HCR-20) tool.

Evaluation of the Response Bias Scale and Improbable Failure Scale in assessing feigned cognitive impairment.

The present study evaluated the Response Bias scale (RBS), a symptom validity test embedded within the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) that assesses for feigned neurocognitive complaints, in a sample of pretrial incompetent to stand trial (IST) criminal defendants. Additionally, we examined the Improbable Failure (IF) scale, a performance validity test embedded within the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms, Second Edition (SIRS-2), which similarly assesses for feigned cognitive impairment (FCI). Results indicated that both the RBS (area under the curve [AUC] = .

Sexualized behaviors in cohorts of children in the child welfare system.

The current retrospective archival study investigated the patterns of normative sexualized behavior (NSB), problematic sexualized behavior (PSB), and sexual perpetration for three age cohorts of boys and girls in a high-risk child welfare sample. All children in the present sample had exhibited some form of PSB in the past. We hypothesized that the incidence rates (IR) of NSBs would increase linearly from the early childhood cohort (Ages 2/3-7) to the middle childhood cohort (Ages 8-11) to the preadolescence/adolescence cohort (Ages 12-17), for girls and boys.