Detecting malingering in traumatic brain injury and chronic pain with an abbreviated version of the Meyers Index for the MMPI-2.

Meyers, Millis, and Volkert [Meyers, J. E., Millis, S. R., & Volkert, K. (2002). A validity index for the MMPI-2. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 17, 157-169] developed a method to detect malingering in chronic pain patients using seven scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). This method may be impractical because two of the scales (Obvious minus Subtle and Dissimulation-revised) are not reported by the commercially available Pearson computerized scoring system. The current study recalculated the Meyers Index using the five Pearson-provided scales in the chronic pain data sets of Meyers et al. [Meyers, J. E., Millis, S. R., & Volkert, K. (2002). A validity index for the MMPI-2. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 17, 157-169] and Bianchini, Etherton, Greve, Heinly, and Meyers [Bianchini, K. J., Etherton, J. L., Greve, K. W., Heinly, M. T., & Meyers, J. E. (in press). Classification accuracy of MMPI-2 validity scales in the detection of pain-related malingering: A known-groups approach. Assessment], and the traumatic brain injury data of Greve, Bianchini, Love, Brennan, and Heinly [Greve, K. W., Bianchini, K. J., Love, J. M., Brennan, A., & Heinly, M. T. (2006). Sensitivity and specificity of MMPI-2 validity scales and indicators to malingered neurocognitive dysfunction in traumatic brain injury. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 20, 491-512]. Classification accuracy of the abbreviated Meyers Index was comparable to the original. These findings demonstrate that the abbreviated Meyers Index can be used as a substitute of the original Meyers Index without decrements in classification accuracy.