Julie S Costopoulos*, Darby Proctor, Alyssa M Johnson and Skyler G Roberts

Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida USA

*Corresponding Author: Julie S Costopoulos, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida USA.

Received: January 07, 2021; Published: May 20, 2021

Abstract

  Assaults in forensic psychiatric hospitals are costly and damaging to the goals of treatment. This study examines the hypothesis that malingerers were responsible for a significantly higher rate of assaults. Individuals diagnosed as malingerers (n = 112) were matched with genuinely mentally ill individuals (n = 112) based on legal status, length of stay, closest age, and gender. Significantly more malingerers committed at least one assault, and committed a greater rate of assaults than patients with genuine clinical syndromes. Young age and personality disorders were also associated with higher frequency of assaults. Findings support the need to reform methods utilized to identify malingerers prior to commitment to an inpatient setting, to reduce the negative impact of assaults perpetrated by malingerers unnecessary hospital stays.

Keywords: Inpatient Assaults; Malingerers; Forensic Hospitalization

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Citation

Citation: Julie S Costopoulos., et al. “The Impact of Malingering on Inpatient Assault Rates”. Acta Scientific Neurology 4.6 (2021): 70-81.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Julie S Costopoulos., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.