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The detection of malingered pain-related disability with the Personality Assessment Inventory
Christopher J Hopwood1, Matthew J Orlando, Timothy S Clark
1Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1116, USA. hopwood2@msu.edu
Objective:
This study presents and evaluates a method to detect malingered pain-related disability (MPRD) using the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), a multiscale self-report instrument with a number of useful applications in pain assessment.
Method:
In this study PAI scores from respondents in a chronic pain clinic (N = 317) and college students instructed to feign chronic pain (N = 152) were compared.
Results:
Although existing PAI validity indicators demonstrated strong effects in discriminating actual pain and MPRD cases, these indicators were not sufficiently sensitive to feigned pain to recommend for clinical practice. A discriminant function was developed and cross-validated, which improved upon the sensitivity of the other indicators and yielded an overall hit rate of 88% for detecting individuals instructed to malinger pain-related disability.
Conclusion:
These data suggest that this new PAI indicator holds some promise for more effective detection of MPRD.
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