Psychiatry Investig.  2020 Jun;17(6):526-532. 10.30773/pi.2019.0330.

Detection of Malingering Using Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV for Psychiatric Patients

• On AK
• Hwang KS
• Jang SH
• Lee HJ
• Soh MJ
• Yang CM
• Lee SY

• KMID: 2503061
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.30773/pi.2019.0330

Abstract

Objective
Psychiatric patients sometimes show poor performance or exaggerated symptoms as malingering for secondary gain. The aim of this study was to introduce cut-off scores for detecting poor performance using Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in psychiatric patients.
Methods
Participants were 261 in- and out-patients who visited psychiatry department. They were classified into 4 group- 1) military service, 2) traumatic brain injury (TBI), 3) psychosis, 4) neurosis. A Digit Span subtest (called as Reliable Digit Span, RDS) of WAIS was used to detect malingering. This study considered a score of 10% base rate as RDS cut-off score.
Results
The RDS cut-off score was shown at 7 pts for military service group, at 3 pts for TBI group, at 6 pts for psychosis group, and at 6 pts for neurosis group.
Conclusion
This study first introduced RDS cut-off scores for malingering psychiatric patients in South Korea. In clinical practice, clinicians may be able to utilize the RDS cut-off scores for malingering-suspected patients. In particular, for patients with military service issues, 7 or less pts of RDS can be used for detecting and inferring their malingering.

Keyword

Malingering, Performance validity, WAIS-IV, Reliable Digit Span, Military service