Confabulation among forensic inpatients and its relationship with memory, suggestibility, compliance, anxiety, and self-esteem

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS-2) was administered to 32 forensic psychiatric inpatients. In addition to the usual procedure, responses were also scored for a more recently derived measure of confabulation, and participants were seen again 1 week later. Participants also completed the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Spielberger State Anxiety Scale. Previous findings of the elevated suggestibility of this group were confirmed. Contrary to predictions, confabulation was not associated with self-esteem, or compliance. Confabulation was found to be related to rate of forgetting, and higher levels of suggestibility and anxiety. Interestingly, the components of confabulation, fabrications and distortions, did not correlate significantly with each other: fabrications and distortions were each associated with different variables.