Comparison of Clinical Psychologist and Physician Beliefs and Practices Concerning Malingering: Results from a Mixed Methods Study

AbstractMalingering, or intentional feigning of impairment for an external incentive, has been the topic of extensive psychological research in recent decades. The emphasis on symptom validity assessment in training, practice, and research in clinical psychology is not echoed across other health professions. While past surveys of clinical psychologists revealed positive beliefs and attitudes toward validity assessment, much less is known about physicians in this area, particularly in regard to how they identify suspected malingering. To address this gap, we surveyed a sample of demographically similar clinical psychologists (n = 57) and physicians (n = 54) regarding their beliefs and practices about malingering. Unique to this study was the use of a mixed survey and mixed methods approach to analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. Broadly, survey findings indicated that more clinical psychologists reported documenting malingering in th eir careers compared with physicians (65.0% vs. 33.0%). Consistently, more clinical psychologists endorsed “always” or “often” being able to recognize malingering compared with physicians (73.7% vs. 22.2%). Clinical psychologists indicated that they ask patients or evaluees about potential e xternal incentives (e.g., current involvement in litigation) much more often than physicians (70.0% vs. 16.0%). On average, clinical psychologists estimated higher base rates of malingering in six high-risk malingering diagnostic catego...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - Category: Medical Law Source Type: research