The Verifiability Approach to detection of malingered physical symptoms

Figures & data

Table 1. Frequencies and percentage of selected symptoms in truth tellers and instructed malingerers in both studies.

Symptoms	Study 1		Study 2
	Truth tellers n (%)	Malingerers n (%)	Truth tellers n (%)	Malingerers n (%)
Back or neck pain	13 (31.7)	10 (11.9)	12 (31.6)	8 (11.9)
Headache	10 (24.4)	35 (41.7)	9 (23.7)	23 (34.3)
Fatigue or loss of energy	8 (19.5)	19 (22.6)	6 (15.8)	15 (22.6)
Upset stomach or indigestion	5 (12.2)	5 (5.9)	5 (13.2)	7 (10.4)
Insomnia or sleeping problems	2 (4.9)	10 (11.9)	1 (2.6)	5 (7.5)
Congested or runny nose	1 (2.4)	2 (2.4)	0	1 (1.5)
Joint pain or stiffness	1 (2.4)	0	1 (2.6)	0
Cough	1 (2.4)	0	1 (2.6)	4 (6.0)
Muscle pain	0	3 (3.6)	0	1 (1.5)
Low blood pressure or circulation problems	0	0	0	2 (3.0)
Added symptoms
Vertigo	0	0	0	1 (1.5)
Intestine pain	0	0	1 (2.6)	0
Knee pain	0	0	1 (2.6)	0
Sore throat	0	0	1 (2.6)	0
Total	41 (100)	84 (100)	38 (100)	67 (100)

Table 2. Summary of main findings in Study 1 and Study 2.

Results	Length of the statements	Difficulty of the task	Number of verifiable details	Number of non-verifiable details	Proportion of verifiable details
Study 1	>*	∼	∼	>**	<*
Study 2	∼	∼	∼	∼	∼

Notes: >, malingerers having higher scores; <, malingerers having lower scores; ∼, no significant differences between groups.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.