The association between clinicians' initial judgments of feigning and outcomes on symptom validity measures among pretrial forensic psychiatric inpatients.

Research suggests the use of validated symptom validity tests to detect feigning is imperative to increase accuracy over unaided clinical judgment, especially in forensic settings. This study examined performance on the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms (M-FAST) and Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) during 297 assessments of forensic inpatients. The risk of being identified as feigning on the M-FAST or SIRS was similar for those who were referred for evaluation of feigning compared to those who were not, but individuals with malingering designations prior to the evaluation scored significantly higher than those without on the M-FAST and several SIRS subscales.

Psychopathy in the Medical Emergency Department.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder representing an admixture of a fearless and dominant temperament with an impulsive and antisocial orientation. A sample of 1,026 participants in the waiting room of the medical emergency department of a city hospital exhibited levels of fearless dominance similar to university undergraduates and federal inmates; their levels of impulsive antisociality fell between those of federal and state inmates. Both psychopathy factors were correlated with male gender, younger age, and more frequent average alcohol consumption.