DIFFERENTIAL VULNERABILITY BETWEEN POSTCONCUSSION SELF-REPORT AND OBJECTIVE MALINGERING TESTS IN IDENTIFYING SIMULATED MILD HEAD-INJURY

The present study examined the ability of analog malingerers to feign postconcussion symptoms and neuropsychological performance patterns se en in mild head-injured patients. Experimental subjects were randomly assigned to either a control condition, asked to feign deficits consis tent with mild head injury without task specific instruction, or feign deficits while given task-specific instruction. A separate group of m ild head-injured patients served as a clinical comparison group. Analo g malingering groups accurately simulated levels of postconcussive sym ptoms seen in the mild head-injured patients. However, poorer performa nce was displayed by the analog malingerers on the objective malingeri ng tests. Coaching did not facilitate realistic patterns of performanc e for analog malingerers. The results of this study indicate that anal og malingerers accurately replicated self-reported postconcussive symp toms, but were less able to simulate objective clinical malingering te st performance. These results suggest that self-report measures of pos tconcussive symptoms and clinical tests are differentially vulnerable to simulation attempts.