Detecting symptom exaggeration in compensation-seeking individuals, psychotherapy clients, and individuals referred for job assessments: Psychometric features of the French and Dutch versions of the Self-Report Symptom Inventory.

Abstract

Objective: The Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI) is a relatively new instrument to detect symptom exaggeration. It contains a mix of plausible and pseudosymptoms, the rationale being that people who intend to exaggerate symptoms will overendorse both types of symptoms, whereas individuals responding truthfully will selectively endorse primarily plausible symptoms. The present study examined whether there are any differences in Dutch and French versions of the SRSI as a first step in determining their psychometric equivalence. Method: Relying on a differential prevalence design, we compared the Dutch and French SRSI in a mixed sample of compensation-seeking individuals (n = 226), psychotherapy clients (n = 95), and job selection candidates (n = 130). Participants were tested at the same bilingual facility and either had a Dutch language background (n = 263) or a French language background (n = 188). Results: Internal reliability estimates of SRSI subscales were highly comparable across the two language groups. Both language groups exhibited a pattern in which compensation-seeking individuals reported the highest level of pseudosymptoms, psychotherapy clients an intermediate level, and the job selection subgroup the lowest level. There was no difference in this regard between the two language backgrounds. Conclusions: Given the increasing diversity in the cultural backgrounds of clients, it is important for experts to have different language versions of the same instrument in their toolbox that possess a comparable quality. Our data show that the Dutch and French SRSI possess similar psychometric and conceptual features.

Assessing the credibility of clinical presentations using performance and symptom validity tests: Current trends and future directions—Part II.

“…In stark contrast to this outdated practice, experts now seem to agree that patient groups cannot be unequivocally considered "bona fide comparison groups" for experimental simulation studies because invalid test results can and do occur outside of the medicolegal/forensic context. For example, in one of the studies included in this special issue, the percentage of SVT failure was as high as 18.1% in a group of individuals assessed prior to psychotherapeutic treatment (Dandachi-FitzGerald et al, 2023), and previous studies have observed similar failure rates in other clinical samples with different SVTs (Bodenburg et al, 2022;Dandachi-FitzGerald et al, 2016;Schroeder & Martin, 2022). Of note, certain SVTs sometimes seem to yield a relatively high number of positive results even in nonclinical contexts Zahid et al, 2023).…”

“…Also noteworthy, there were no order effects. Along similar lines, Dandachi-FitzGerald et al (2023) administered the Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI; Merten et al, 2016; for a review, see Merten et al, 2022) in either Dutch or French to a relatively large sample consisting of compensation-seeking individuals, psychotherapy clients, and job applicants. Consistent with the hypothesis that the Dutch and French versions of the SRSI are equivalent, the mean scores and failure rates were strikingly similar in both languages.…”