Fibromialgia: ¿exageración o simulación?

Abstract

A multidimensional study on symptom exaggeration in fibromyalgia patients is presented. The main aim is to detect discriminant patterns of malingered pain-related disability in order to develop a detailed protocol for the assessment of suspected malingering in cases of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external incentives. Overall sample (N = 113) consisted of four groups: fibromyalgia patients not involved in litigation (n = 36), fibromyalgia patients involved in litigation (n = 26), analogue fibromyalgia-instructed participants (n = 21), and control group (n = 30). Several medical and psychological tests were administered to participants, including medical complementary tests, the Spanish adaptation of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (Baessler and Schwarzer, 1996), the Life Personal Self-Report Scale (González-Ordi, Santamaría, & Casado-Morales, 2012), the Spanish adaptation of the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnarie (FIQ, Monterde, Salvat, Montull, & Fernández-Ballart, 2004), the Spanish version of the SF-36 Health Survey (Alonso, Prieto, & Antó, 1995), the Spanish adaptation of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS, González Ordi and Santamaría, 2009), and the Spanish adaptation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF, Ben-Porath and Tellegen, 2008a). Data on mean group differences and predictive accuracy of the instruments used are presented. A protocol for the detection of malingering based on the differential profile scores between fibromyalgia non-litigants and litigants are also addressed.