The Utility of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms in a Sample of Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities

The challenges of accurate forensic assessment are aggravated when evaluatees have intellectual disabilities. Few studies have addressed the efficacy of forensic assessment in samples diagnosed with an intellectual disability, and those that have typically focus on measures of cognitive effort rathe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Assessment (Odessa, Fla.) Fla.), 2011-09, Vol.18 (3), p.284-290
Main Authors: Weiss, Rebecca A., Rosenfeld, Barry, Farkas, Melanie R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Analysis of Variance
Classification
Crime
Female
Forensic Psychiatry - methods
Humans
Intellectual Disability - diagnosis
Intellectual Disability - psychology
Intelligence Tests
Interview, Psychological
Interviews
Law Enforcement
Male
Malingering - diagnosis
Malingering - psychology
Measures (Individuals)
Mental Disorders
Mental Retardation
Middle Aged
Persuasive Discourse
Psychometrics - methods
Referral and Consultation
Reproducibility of Results
Scoring
Statistics as Topic
Symptoms (Individual Disorders)
Young Adult
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Summary:The challenges of accurate forensic assessment are aggravated when evaluatees have intellectual disabilities. Few studies have addressed the efficacy of forensic assessment in samples diagnosed with an intellectual disability, and those that have typically focus on measures of cognitive effort rather than on feigned psychiatric symptoms. This study focuses on the applicability of the original and revised versions of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) in a sample of participants with genuine intellectual disabilities. The SIRS was administered to 43 individuals diagnosed with intellectual disabilities, all of whom were asked to respond honestly. A considerable proportion of these respondents were misclassified as feigning psychiatric symptoms. These misclassifications were most frequent when the respondents had comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. The updated scoring algorithm of the SIRS-2 generated a rate of misclassifications that was substantially lower but that still exceeded published normative data. The implications for forensic assessment are discussed.
ISSN:1073-1911
1552-3489
DOI:10.1177/1073191111408230