Factitious disorder is defined by the intentional production or feigning of physical or psychological symptoms with the objective of assuming the patient role. It is frequently difficult to adequately diagnose this disorder, above all, when the faked symptoms are those of a psychological or a psychiatric disorder. In these cases, there is often high comorbidity with other mental disorders, thus...

BACKGROUND Factitious and somatoform-disorder patients are alike in that they both organize their lives around seeking medical services in spite of having primarily a psychiatric condition. In DSM-IV, the key difference is that factitious-disorder patients feign illness, and somatoform-disorder patients actually believe they are ill. Although patients may not be conscious of their motivation or...

The maxillofacial region is rarely subjected to self-inflicted conditions such as factitious disease. Nasal ulceration, facial emphysema, periorbital ecchymosis, mandibular subluxation, gingival and mucosal ulceration, dental and salivary gland pain and glossopharyngeal neuralgia have been reported as possible manifestations of factitious disease. We report a case of a young woman who presented...

Munchausen syndrome (MS) was first reported in 1951 by Richard Alan John Asher as a factitious disorder. It is a condition in which the patient intentionally produces symptoms to assume a sick role and gain medical attention. Underdiagnosis of this disorder results in the unnecessary use of medical resources, i.e. unnecessary medical tests and evaluations. This makes it one of the most challeng...

BACKGROUND Munchausen's syndrome by proxy (recently renamed fabricated or induced illness) is a rare form of child abuse, but relatively little is known about the psychopathology of the perpetrators. AIMS To examine the medical, psychiatric, social work and forensic records of mothers referred for detailed psychiatric assessment from 1996 to 2009. METHOD Twenty-eight consecutive individuals...

A case of factitious illness in a young village woman is described. She presented with multiple physical and psychiatric symptoms and had interpersonal and sexual problems. A simple behavioural approach was successful in ameliorating her symptoms.

Our patients had typical features of factitious disease,1 2 three of them developing anorexia nervosa. They had been bleeding themselves for four to 11 years and were well adapted to severe chronic anaemia with haemoglobin concentrations rarely above 60 gll. Their physical fitness was remarkable, and, notably, they tailored their bleeding such that it did not jeopardise an active life. Although...

Münchhausen’s syndrome (MS) is a chronic factitious disorder characterized by the intentional production of clinical symptoms without external incentive. One type of MS is factitious Cushing syndrome, an extremely rare clinical situation in which the diagnosis is challenging mainly due to interference of the exogenous medication in cortisol immunoassays. We described a 26-year-old woman who was...