https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-9696
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ABSTRACT
The Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) and its revised edition (SIRS-2) are frequently used in forensic psychological evaluations for assessing response style. The present research investigated the utility of this instrument in Taiwan Region adults. In a simulation design, 143 nonclinical volunteers were randomly assigned to either simulating or honest-responding groups. Results indicated that the primary scales of the Chinese SIRS-2 possessed acceptable internal consistency and generated large to very large effect sizes (1.39–2.17) in differentiating simulators and genuine respondents. The convergent validity of the Chinese SIRS-2 was supported by the correlations of its scales with the Chinese MMPI-2 validity scales. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed a one-factor model. The decision models of both the SIRS and SIRS-2 resulted in few to no false positives, while the SIRS had greater sensitivity than the SIRS-2. The SIRS-2 total score generated discrimination rates comparable to the published manual in detecting feigning or honest responding. Results supported the use of the Chinese SIRS-2 in Taiwan Region adults. However, as the research methodology inflates both effect sizes and specificity estimates, further research is needed to examine the clinical utility of the Chinese SIRS-2.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ms. Fang-Hsiao Hsu and Ms. Pei-Chen Huang for their help in data collection.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.