Abstract

Practitioners always want to exclude the possibility that a patient is feigning symptoms. Some experts have suggested that an inconsistent symptom presentation across time (i.e., intraindividual variability) is indicative of feigning. We investigated how individuals with genuine pain-related symptoms (truth tellers; Study 1 n = 32; Study 2 n = 48) and people feigning such complaints (feigners; Study 1 n = 32; Study 2 n = 28) rated the intensity of their symptoms across a 5-day period. In both studies, feigners reported on all 5 days significantly higher symptom intensities than people with genuine complaints, but the two groups did not differ with regard to symptom (in)consistency. Thus, persistently inflated, rather than inconsistent, reports of symptom intensity over time are suggestive of feigning. The implications and limitations of our work are discussed.

摘要

从业者总是希望排除患者假装症状的可能性。一些专家建议，随着时间的推移不一致的症状表现（即个体内变异性）是假装的表现。我们调查了具有真正疼痛相关症状的个体（真相讲述者；研究 1 n  = 32；研究 2 n  = 48）和假装此类抱怨的人（伪装者；研究 1 n  = 32；研究 2 n = 28) 评估他们在 5 天内的症状强度。在这两项研究中，假装者报告的所有 5 天症状强度都显着高于真正抱怨的人，但两组在症状（不）一致性方面没有差异。因此，随着时间的推移，症状强度的持续夸大而不是不一致的报告暗示了假装。讨论了我们工作的含义和局限性。