• Let’s first define malingering, this is the production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external incentives. 
• Not all lying involves secondary gain, but ALL malingering does involve secondary gain 
• Common secondary gains include avoiding military service, avoiding work, financial incentives, avoiding legal actions, and obtaining controlled substances 
• Feigning mental illness is not the same as malingering because the reason behind the false production of symptoms is not assumed with feigning symptoms. 
• Factitious disorder is the voluntary production of symptoms, but this is with the goal of assuming the sick role or role of a patient, it’s not done for secondary gain. 

Consider malingering when….

-Rare symptoms are present 

-Improbable symptoms are being reported

-Rare combination of symptoms are present

-Reported Vs observed symptoms are not congruent

Malingered Depression:

-25-30% of patients who claimed major depression in civil litigation were probably malingering

-Pay careful attention to facial expressions 

-Pay careful attention to motor function, psychomotor retardation is an important observable sign

-If appetite changes are reported look for actual objective weight change 

-symptoms opposite of depression 

-blaming others for everything is not the way guilt typically presents in depression, this is externalizing and not taking personal responsibnility

Malingered Psychosis: 

-Often in true psychosis people can describe the voice/s, is it loud, soft, male, female, you have some experience of what you heard. When you ask a malingering patient about a voice, they should have some ability to describe what they are hearing, if not consider malingering.

-If you are suspicious, begin with open ended questions, ask them to describe things in their own words. 

-Genuine AH are in words or sentences, drug Hallucinations usually occur as unformed noises.

-The location of the voice inside the head or outside is no longer a good predictor of malingering 

-Many times the content of voices are derogatory in nature

-Other signs of malingered psychosis include Vague or inaudible auditory hallucinations, AH not associated with delusions (86% of AH have an associated delusion), no strategies to diminish voices 76% of patients have some coping strategy to diminish the voices. They claim that all instructions are obeyed, the hallucinations are visual alone, seeing little people or giant people for example.