Fraudulently Claiming Following a Road Traffic Accident: A Pilot Study of UK Residents’ Attitudes

Abstract

The UK Government recently expressed concern regarding the financial repercussions that feigned whiplash claims following road traffic accidents (RTA) are having on the economy. Indeed, this is a problem that is a likely result of a significant percentage of otherwise law-abiding citizens, who interpret this behaviour to be victimless. Previous research has indicated that a substantial prevalence of malingering exists across a variety of contexts; however, establishing the ground truth is problematic. This paper presents an alternative approach that provides an insight into the problem of malingering following a RTA. 197 participants completed a hypothetical questionnaire that examined their likelihood of malingering either: depression, PTSD or whiplash following a RTA. The results suggest that a substantial percentage indicated they would be likely to malinger using either a partial malingering or false imputation strategy. Malingering following a RTA appears to be regarded with little severity and this paper discusses the implications.

Mission impossible? Assessing the veracity of a mental health problem as result of a road traffic accident: a preliminary review of UK experts’ practices

“…Previous research has evidenced that preventing malingering can be successful using a warning grounded in deterrence theory (King & Sullivan, 2009) and the results of previous research by Cartwright and Roach (2016) investigating the public perception of the severity of malingering certainly advocates the need for the use of a warning. However, the results of the present study outline that the majority (87.5%) of examiners do not implement such warnings within their practice.…”

“…Having said this, such idiosyncrasies have been noted in both Australia (Yoxall, Bahr & Barling, 2010) and North America (Sharland & Gfeller, 2007) and therefore it is important that such research is conducted in the UK with the wider community of medico-legal assessors. Such inconsistencies that have been noted in previous research are certainly worrying and this is exacerbated when one considers the recent findings of Cartwright and Roach's (2016) study that provides evidence that the UK public, in general, do not perceive the malingering of mental disorder following a RTA to be considered serious.…”

“…were required to answer a maximum of 52 questions but the level of detail required for each differed, for example some questions invited a detailed qualitative response whereas others only required a brief phrase or a numeric response. The development of the questions included in this survey derived from the findings of two previous quantitative research articles, which were conducted by members of the research team (Cartwright et al, 2016;Cartwright, 2018). The two previous studies (as outlined in the introduction) evidenced substantial methodological inconsistencies and weaknesses between two UK assessors and as a result, the questions in the present study aimed to explore these issues with the wider medico-legal community.…”

“…The guidance given to clinicians has been criticised for being characteristic of a criminological model whereby malingerers are regarded as anti-social and bad, which may result in both false positives and false negative diagnoses (Rogers, 1990). It is worth noting that malingering is additionally defined in ICD-10 under the diagnostic code Z76.5 (World Health Organisation, 2017) but the DSM-5 definition is favoured here due to more in depth coverage alongside the rationale that in two previous UK research papers the DSM-5 was utilised by both a psychologist and psychiatrist practising in the medico legal arena (Cartwright, 2018;Cartwright et al, 2016). The main criticism of the diagnostic criteria afforded by DSM-5 and its predecessors relate to the criteria failing to acknowledge the full breadth of malingering; malingering is not an all or nothing phenomenon (Conroy & Kwartner, 2006).…”

“…Until recently very few research articles have explored assessments of mental disorder in the UK civil litigation arena. In a brief case study of one psychiatrist's portfolio of RTA medico legal claimants (N=100) it was found by (Cartwright et al, 2016) that up to 40% of claimants' declared mental disorder could be classified as not being attributable to the RTA. In a different study, Cartwright (2018) reviewed a larger sample of RTA claimants (N=305) originating from one psychologist's career of RTA assessments and when the two examiners' methodologies were compared, substantial differences were observed.…”