Diagnostic accuracy of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) in motor vehicle accident patients

Puente-López, Esteban; Pina, David; Hernández, José Antonio Ruíz; Llor-Esteban, Bartolomé

doi:10.1080/14789949.2020.1833073

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A yet another consideration that suggests the motorists in the study by Puente-López et al sustained only relatively minor injuries is the low frequency of "dizziness" reported by those patients: "none of the patients suffered neurological signs (Grade 3), except for 6 overreporting patients who claimed to have mild dizziness, 3 of them when moving their heads abruptly," see Puente-López et al [12].…”

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Puente-López, Pina, Ruiz-Hernández, and Llor-Esteban [12] statistically examined SIMS scores of the following four groups of persons:…”

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MVA patients of Puente-López, were evaluated by three physicians who "assessed whether the patients' manifestation of their symptomatology was consistent with the anatomical-structural indicators observed or expected in the condition (pain severity, pain location, cervical movement range, active/passive joint balance, etc. ), see Puente López [12]. The three physicians then decided which of these MVA patients should be classified as "overreporting" and which as "non-overreporting.…”

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the group of injured motorists classified as "nonoverreporting patients," 95.5% "were diagnosed with whiplash injury, the remaining 4.5% were also diagnosed with whiplash injury, but they also reported suffering from lower back pain. For overreporting patients, the diagnosis of whiplash injury was presented in 89% of the cases, and whiplash injury with lower back pain was made in 8% of the cases," see Puente-López et al [12]. Thus, the word "whiplash" as used in the article by Puente-López presumably denotes mostly only cervical injury, i.e., WAD-C, rather than also WAD-LS or WAD-T.…”

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the lack of other than pseudoscientific validations of the SIMS, the teams of Capilla Ramírez [11] and of Puente-López [12] intended to properly validate the SIMS on injured motorists, by comparing their SIMS scores to those of instructed malingerers. Their samples of injured motorists obtained low SIMS scores, below the cutoff for malingering, and statistically lower than those of healthy persons instructed to feign whiplash injuries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Flawed Studies of SIMS’s Diagnostic Accuracy by Teams of Puente-López and Capilla Ramírez

Cernovsky

2021

EJMED

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The teams of Puente-López and Capilla Ramírez evaluated diagnostic accuracy of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS), a test often used to assess malingering by persons injured in motor vehicle accidents (MVAs). Yet all SIMS items represent legitimate medical symptoms, and more than 50% of them are those experienced by severely injured motorists, but they are fallaciously scored as indicative of malingering. Thus, more injured patients with more symptoms obtain higher SIMS scores for malingering. Method: The studies by Puente-López and by Capilla Ramírez were carried out on SIMS scores of injured motorists. The present article assesses the severity of their injuries, as documented by Puente-López and by Capilla Ramírez. Results and Discussion: The study by Capilla Ramírez’s team excluded patients with pathological results on physical examinations, or on X-Rays, EMG, and MRI: thus, only mildly injured motorists were included. The patients of Puente-López had signs of only a mild cervical whiplash. Almost none reported lower back pain or dizziness. Thus, both studies included patients with only mild symptoms that resulted in very low SIMS scores: they scored within the non-malingering range as defined by the SIMS manual. Their scores were below SIMS scores of healthy persons instructed to feign whiplash symptoms from an MVA. The teams of Capilla Ramírez and of Puente-López erroneously interpreted these results as demonstrating diagnostic accuracy of the SIMS for detection of malingering in injured motorists. Conclusions: The two studies of very mildly injured motorists fail to demonstrate “diagnostic accuracy of the SIMS” because the SIMS is mostly used by insurance contracted psychologists on more severely injured MVA patients (those with whiplash and post-concussion syndrome), i.e., those with more symptoms and thus, with higher SIMS scores that fallaciously classify them as “malingerers.”

show abstract

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Puente-López, Pina, Ruiz-Hernández, and Llor-Esteban [12] statistically examined SIMS scores of the following four groups of persons:…”

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Review Of Puente-lópez's Sims Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%