Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS)

Purpose: Screen for malingered psychopathology and cognitive symptoms

Age: 18-99 years

Time: 10-15 minutes

Administration: Individual or group

The Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) is a 75-item, true/false screening instrument that assesses for both malingered psychopathology and neuropsychological symptoms.

The SIMS provides five scale domains—Psychosis, Low Intelligence, Neurologic Impairment, Affective Disorders, and Amnestic Disorders—as well as an overall score for probable malingering.

Key Features

• Can be used as part of a battery of tests to provide convergent evidence of malingering.
• Recommended as part of a comprehensive approach to any evaluation in which alternative hypotheses for response patterns should be considered.
• Demonstrates sensitivity, specificity, and efficacy across both simulation and known-groups designs with honest responders, psychiatric patients, and clinical malingerers.
• Written at a 5th-grade reading level, the SIMS has demonstrated very good utility in identifying malingering across multiple studies.

The SIMS is an excellent tool for forensic clinicians working with competency and Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) evaluations, forensic researchers, and clinicians who evaluate disability and workers' compensation issues.