¿DISCRIMINA LA ESCALA DE DS DEL MMPI LA SIMULACIÓN DE RESPUESTAS HONESTAS Y DE PACIENTES CLÍNICOS? UNA REVISIÓN META-ANALÍTICA / [DOES THE MMPI DS SCALE DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN MALINGERING RESPONSES FROM HONEST AND REAL PATIENT RESPONSES? A META-ANALYTIC REVIEW]

Abstract

In psychological forensic assessment malingering must be suspected (differential diagnosis), being the MMPI-2 the reference instrument for this purpose. Malingering • Correspondencia/correspondence: ramon.arce@usc.es Financiación/Funding: Esta investigación fue financiada, en parte, con un Proyecto del Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España [This research has been sponsored by a grant of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness] Referencia/reference: PSI201787278-R, y con fondos del Programa de Ayudas a la Etapa Predoctotal de la Xunta de Galicia, dentro del proyecto “Revisión meta-analítica de los instrumentos forenses de evaluación del daño psicológico”. PSICOLOGÍA JURÍDICA Y FORENSE: INVESTIGACIÓN PARA LA PRÁCTICA PROFESIONAL 10 assessment implies the study of different malingering strategies including the erroneous stereotypes. For this aim, MMPI-2 comprises the Gough Dissimulation Scale (Ds) consisting of 58 items which has been observed to be effective in the discrimination between genuine clinical patients and malingerers. Previous meta-analytic reviews found support for this scale but results are invalid as mean effect size was not corrected for sampling error. As for this, an actualised revision correcting effect sizes was performed. The search located 23 primary studies from which 67 effect sizes were computed, 37 comparing malingerers with genuine patients, and 30 contrasting malingerers with the nonclinical controls. The results showed that the Ds Scale is effective is efficient in both contrast of malingerers with genuine patients, d = 0.84[0.77, 0.91], and nonclinical controls general, d = 0.42[0.35, 0.49]. Moreover, the discriminative capacity of the scale is significantly higher between malingered responses with genuine patients that with nonclinical controls. The implications of the results for professional practice are discussed.