Three families are described in which the healthy only child was, from early childhood, put to bed and treated as if ill, dependent, and incapable. This abnormal mothering continued for 28, 45, and 48 years, respectively, and the children died as disabled adults. In each case, the three mothers evaded medical, educational, and social services. The origins of their behaviour are examined, and th...

OBJECTIVE The overriding objective is a critical examination of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) and its closely-related alternative, factitious disorder by proxy (FDBP). Beyond issues of diagnostic validity, assessment methods and potential detection strategies are explored. METHODS A painstaking analysis was conducted of the MSBP and FDBP literature as it relates diagnostic and assessmen...

Munchausen by proxy is a disorder in which a child is victimized through a form of child abuse called pediatric condition falsification (PCF). PCF has been documented for psychological and psychiatric conditions including one such form presented here in which educational disabilities are the focus of falsification. Parents meet their own self-serving needs through "impostering" as good mothers....

Munchausen syndrome, a chronic factitious disorder with physical symptoms, also called hospital hoboes or hospital addiction, is an uncommon psychiatric disorder, usually presents as an emergency. The correct recognition of the syndrome is important in medical practice. A brief review with an interesting case report is presented.

Dermatitis artefacta is a disorder in which the skin is the target of self-inflicted injury. We report a case of dermatitis artefacta, in which the patient developed skin lesions, after taking each and every medication. Additionally he also had red coloured urine after taking certain group of medications, which, on further investigations, was found to be associated with glucose 6-phosphate dehy...