Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms - Second Edition (SIRS-2)

The SIRS-2 helps evaluate feigning of psychiatric symptoms in greater detail with expanded scoring and classification.

The SIRS-2 was developed to assess deliberate distortions in the self-report of symptoms. Each scale produces useful information on how a particular client may distort or fabricate his or her symptoms. The primary focus of the SIRS-2 is on the evaluation of feigning and the manner in which it is likely to occur, such as an exaggeration of symptom severity rather than a fabrication of symptomatology.

The revised Manual updates the malingering literature with special attention to detection strategies and their clinical applications to feigned mental disorders. It combines data from the original SIRS validation studies with more recent research and includes a conceptual framework for understanding feigned mental disorders plus explicit instructions for administration, scoring, and classification. The SIRS-2 Manual also provides clarifications of malingering, factitious disorders, feigning, and related terms; an understanding of explanatory models and their relevance to clinical practice; a conceptualization of detection strategies within different domains; and insights into the SIRS-2 primary scales, including their general category of detection strategies (unlikely vs. amplified) and conceptual relationship to other commonly used measures.

The updated Interview Booklet contains test questions and their ratings. Two security templates are provided to block item content for instances in which evaluators are legally required to produce SIRS-2 item responses.

The wealth of empirical support established for the measure gives users confidence in the validity of the SIRS-2 for forensic populations. This is particularly important as findings of psychological evaluations are often closely scrutinized during court proceedings. In particular, the SIRS-2 demonstrates excellent discriminant validity when comparing feigning versus genuine samples.