Citation

van der Heide D, Merckelbach H. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2016; 49(Pt A): 40-46.

Affiliation

Forensic Psychology Section, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: h.merckelbach@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.05.007

PMID

27209603

Abstract

Our study involved three samples (N=85; N=38, and N=27) of asylum seekers in a Dutch psychiatric hospital. We looked at how often they reported severe dissociative episodes (i.e., not recognizing oneself in a mirror; seeing traumatic images in a mirror) and whether these symptoms were related to deviant performance on Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs), notably items from the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS; Widows & Smith, 2005) and a forced-choice task modeled after the Morel Emotional Numbing Test (MENT; Morel, 1998). We also examined whether poor language proficiency and the presence of incentives to exaggerate symptoms might affect scores on SVTs. Dissociative target symptoms were reported by considerable percentages of patients (27-63%). Patients who reported these symptoms had significantly more often deviant scores on SVT items compared with those who did not report such symptoms. With a few exceptions, deviant scores on SVT items were associated with incentives rather than poor language skills. We conclude that the validity of self-reported symptoms in this target group should not be taken for granted and that SVTs may yield important information.

Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en