"I Just Saw Big Bird. He Was 100 Feet Tall!" Malingering in the Emergency Room: Four Instruments Can Help You Make a Rapid Assessment of a Patient Feigning Symptoms

The economic downturn in the United States has prompted numerous state and county budget cuts, in turn forcing many patients to receive their mental health care in the emergency room (ER). Most patients evaluated in the ER for mental health-related reasons have a legitimate psychiatric crisis--but that isn't always the case. And as the number of people seeking care in the ER has increased, it appears that so too has the number of those who feign symptoms for secondary gain--that is, who are malingering. This article highlights several red flags for malingered behavior; emphasizes typical (compared with atypical) symptoms of psychosis; and provides an overview of four instruments that you can use to help assess for malingering in the ED. A difficult diagnosis No single factor is indicative of malingering, and no objective tests exist to diagnose malingering definitively. Rather, the tests we discuss provide additional information that can help formulate a clinical impression. According to DSM-5, malingering is "... the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives ..." (1) Despite a relatively straightforward definition, the diagnosis is difficult to make because it is a diagnosis of exclusion. Even with sufficient evidence, many clinicians are reluctant to diagnose malingering because they fear retaliation and diagnostic uncertainty. Psychiatrists also might be reluctant to diagnose malingering because the negative connotation that the label carries risks stigmatizing a patient who might, in fact, be suffering. This is true especially when there is suspicion of partial malingering, the conscious exaggeration of existing symptoms. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Despite physicians' reluctance to diagnose malingering, it is a real problem, especially in the ER. Research suggests that as many as 13% of patients in the ER feign illness, and that their secondary gain most often includes food, shelter, prescription drugs, financial gain, and avoidance of jail, work, or family responsibilities. (2) CASE REPORT 'The voices are telling me to kill myself' Mr. K, a 36-year-old white man, walks into the ER on a late December day. He tells the triage nurse that he suicidal; she escorts him to the psychiatric pod of the ER. Nursing staff provide line-of-sight care, monitor his vital signs, and draw blood for testing. Within hours, Mr. K is deemed "medically cleared" and ready for assessment by the psychiatric social worker. Interview and assessment. During the interview with the social worker, Mr. K reports that he has been depressed, adamantly maintaining that he is suicidal, with a plan to "walk in traffic" or "eat the end of a gun." The social worker places him on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. ER physicians order psychiatric consultation. Mr. K is well-known to the psychiatrist on call, from prior ER visits and psychiatric hospital admissions. In fact, two days earlier, he put a psychiatric nurse in a headlock while being escorted from the psychiatric inpatient unit under protest. On assessment by the psychiatrist, Mr. K continues to endorse feeling suicidal; he adds: "If I don't get some help, I'm gonna kill somebody else!" Without prompting, the patient states that "the voices are telling me to kill myself." He says that those voices have been relentless since he left the hospital two days earlier. According to Mr. K, nothing he did helped quiet the voices, although previous prescriptions for quetiapine have been helpful. Mr. K says that he is unable to recall the clinic or name of his prior psychiatrist. He claims that he was hospitalized four months ago, (despite the psychiatrist's knowledge that he had been discharged two days ago) and estimates that his psychotic symptoms began one year ago. He explains that he is homeless and does not have social support. …