The negative distortion scale: A new PAI validity scale

The personality assessment inventory (PAI) includes three scales to address negative feigning, but none have proved successful under all circumstances, especially with forensic populations. Using psychiatric inpatients, a new validity scale was developed for individuals presenting with higher levels of psychopathology, as often is the case with forensic patients. Items with extreme response frequencies were identified from within PAI's eight clinical scales that address psycho-pathology; from these a negative distortion scale (NDS) was constructed. To evaluate efficacy of the NDS, the structured interview of reported symptoms (SIRS) was used as a criterion measure for malingering. The NDS was found to effectively discriminate suspected malingerers, and it added incremental validity to existing PAI validity measures.