ABSTRACT

In part due to its unverifiable and often non-localized nature, in addition to frequent simultaneous faking in other physical and psychological domains, feigned pain and loss of sensation is difficult to ascertain. Pain targets and response styles are a significant focus in a substantial percentage of civil claims. Historic rates of malingering across a number of studies hovers in the 35%–45% range. However, this rate may be influenced by biasing factors in the evaluator, sometimes falsely imputing deception to the examinee or setting too high a threshold for a compensable diagnosis. Malingering rates for pain-related conditions may also be artificially inflated by unreliable and invalid methods/measures utilized to determine faking. Once evaluator bias has been accounted for and a wide database of information gathered, with a heavy emphasis on reliable and valid norm-based measures, it is recommended that multiple streams of data for the assessment of malingered pain and loss of sensation be utilized to form the basis of the forensic report and/or expert testimony.