Malingering evaluationa contrastive meta-analytic review of F and F-r scales

Resumo

The MMPI is the most worldwide psychometric instrument used for differential diagnostic of malingering in forensic setting evaluation. Among the validity scales, F scale from MMPI-2 and revised F scale, F-r, from MMPI-2-RF, have been reported in meta-analytic reviews as the most efficient scales for malingering classification. A controversy about what is the most efficient of these scales to classify malingering has risen. As for this, a contrastive meta-analytic review focused in F and F-r scales was performed. As for F scale, 124 primary studies were found, obtaining 256 effect sizes with 14,793 subjects in the experimental group. In relation to F-r, 36 primary studies, involving 4,743 subjects in the experimental group, were found from which 78 effect sizes were computed. The results showed an effect size corrected by sampling error and criterion unreliability more than large (d > 1.50) for both F (d = 2.43) and F-r (d = 1.51). Comparatively, the results support that the effect size for F scale is significantly higher, qc = 0.328, p < .05, than for F-r scale. Furthermore, the distributions of honest and malingered responses are completely independent (i.e., capacity to classify correctly honest and malingering responses) in an 87% (U1 = .87) for F scale and in a 71% (U1 = .71) for F-r scale. Consequently, both scales are highly efficient in classifying (and discriminating between) honest and malingered responses, but F scale performs significantly better than its revised version, F-r.