MALINGERING ASSESSMENT IN BEHAVIORAL-TOXICOLOGY - WHAT, WHY, AND HOW

Neurobehavioral assessment is frequently made in a forensic context. T he cognitive assessment may be biased due to an intentional manipulati on of data by the patient motivated by attainment of compensation, tha t is, malingering. Although malingering is highly relevant in behavior al toxicology, the issue and its assessment are underrepresented in th e literature. A routine assessment of malingering is important to redu ce false-positive and false-negative errors in assessment, thereby est ablishing the credibility and validity of behavioral assessment. In th e long run, the routine inclusion of malingering measurements might re duce claims and encourage employers to be more cooperative in behavior al toxicology studies. Guidelines for malingering assessment and resea rch, inferred from the clinical and research literature, are discussed . Sensitivity to the problematic issues involved in assessing malinger ing behavior is an important step toward malingering detection in the clinical setting and to the establishment of assessment methods that a re less confounded by these issues. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.