A model to differentiate WAD patients and people with abnormal pain behaviour based on biomechanical and self-reported tests

The prevalence of malingering among individuals presenting whiplash-related symptoms is significant and leads to a huge economic loss due to fraudulent injury claims. Various strategies have been proposed to detect malingering and symptoms exaggeration. However, most of them have been not consistently validated and tested to determine their accuracy in detecting feigned whiplash. This study merges two different approaches to detect whiplash malingering (the mechanical approach and the qualitative analysis of the symptomatology) to obtain a malingering detection model based on a wider range of indices, both biomechanical and self-reported. A sample of 46 malingerers and 59 genuine clinical patients was tested using a kinematic test and a self-report questionnaire asking about the presence of rare and impossible symptoms. The collected measures were used to train and validate a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classification model. Results showed that malingerers were discriminated from genuine clinical patients based on a greater proportion of rare symptoms vs. possible self-reported symptoms and slower but more repeatable neck motions in the biomechanical test. The fivefold cross-validation of the LDA model yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.84, with a sensitivity of 77.8% and a specificity of 84.7%.

Automated summary

The study combines two different approaches to detect whiplash malingering (mechanical approach and qualitative analysis of symptomatology) in order to obtain a malingering detection model based on a wider range of indices, including biomechanical and self-reported measures. Results showed that malingerers were distinguished from genuine clinical patients based on a higher proportion of rare symptoms and slower but more repeatable neck motions in the biomechanical test. The LDA model had an AUC of 0.84 with 77.8% sensitivity and 84.7% specificity.