Sensitivity and specificity of the Rey Dot Counting Test in patients with suspect effort and various clinical samples

The Rey Dot Counting Test was administered to 100 patients with suspect effort drawn from two separate settings (personal injury/disability, n=86; prison hospital, n=14) and to 251 subjects in nine clinical groups (head injury, learning disability, right and left cerebrovascular accident, schizophrenia, older normals, depressed elderly, and mild and moderate dementia). Sensitivity of cut-offs for individual test scores (mean grouped dot counting time, ratio of mean grouped to ungrouped dot counting time, and number of errors) differed markedly across the two suspect effort groups (e.g., 28-100%), indicating that noncredible patients drawn from different settings employ somewhat differing approaches in their fabrication of cognitive symptoms. Use of a cut-off of > or =17 applied to a combination score (mean ungrouped dot counting time+meangrouped dot counting time+number of errors) resulted in 100% sensitivity in the forensic suspect effort group and 75% sensitivity in the civil litigation/disability suspect effort group, while maintaining specificity of > or =90% for the clinical groups combined (excluding moderate dementia).