Development of a malingering screening tool for female inmates

This demonstration project has two purposes. The first is to develop a brief measure to screen for the presence of malingering psychiatric illness1 in a female inmate population - The Beaulieu Correctional Screen for Reported Symptoms-Women (BCSRS-W). The literature review section outlines the rationale for developing this tool. The second purpose is to propose a pilot study that will assess the feasibility of administering the BCSRS-W with female inmates in Connecticut. The screening tool will not be implemented at this stage; rather, I provide a description of how this screening tool can be developed and objectively evaluated.;As part of the pilot study one hundred female inmates (n=100) in the Connecticut women's prison (York Correctional Institution- YCI) will be administered the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS), The Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS), The Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST), and BCSRS-W. The reliability and validity of the BCSRS-W are also investigated. It is hypothesized that there will be moderate to high correlations between the BCSRS-W total and scale scores and the other measures. Utility analysis are discussed with predicted results indicating preliminary generalizability of the BCSRS-W for female inmates. Finally, suggestions for future research and use of the BCSRS-W are outlined.;1For the purposes of this doctoral project, the term malingering as applied to the BCSM-W (Beaulieu Correctional Screen for Malingering-Women) will refer to malingering psychiatric illness.