Measuring the malingering: psychometric properties and discriminant ability of the italian version of the structured inventory of malingered symptomatology (SIMS)

Abstract

This article addresses to verify the psychometric properties and the discriminant ability of the Italian version of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS; Smith, 1993; Smith e Burger, 1997) in a sample of 568 normal people with an age ranging from 18 to 30 years old. The SIMS is a selfreport questionnaire consisting of 75 dichotomous (true/false) items developed for detecting possible deception in five clinical conditions of malingering: low intelligence, affective disorders, neurological damage, psychosis and amnesia. All participants completed the Italian version of the SIMS. In a Simulation Design, a part of the sample consisting of 143 undergraduates students was asked to either (1, n=80) malinger low intelligence, affective disorders, neurological damage, psychosis and amnesia by giving an easily understood description of these disorders or (2, n=63) serve as controls responding honestly. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) showed a structure with four principal factors with a good internal consistency (KR21=.90). Correlation between the malingering indices and some MMPI-2 (Butcher et al., 1989) scales - for example, Fb (r = .40, p<.01) and F-K index (r = .41, p<.01) - were statistically significant. These findings suggest that the SIMS maybe useful in the assessment of Malingering also in Italy.