Factitious disorder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**Factitious disorder**
*Classifications and external resources*
ICD-10	F68.1
ICD-9	300.16

A factitious disorder or FD is an illness whose symptoms are either self-induced or falsified by the patient. The motives of the patient can vary: for a patient with Munchausen syndrome their primary aim is to obtain sympathy, nurturance and attention, while in the case of malingering the patient wishes to obtain external gains such as drugs or disability payments or to avoid an unpleasant situation, such as military duty. Strictly speaking, FD and malingering cannot be diagnosed in the same patient, yet clinicians find that patient's motives for the ruses can vary over time and, as a result, both diagnoses may apply. FD and Munchausen syndrome are considered mental disorders; malingering, though sometimes a focus of clinical attention, is not.

Factitious disorders should be distinguished from conversion disorder, in which the patient is unaware that the symptoms being experienced are not medically caused. In hypochondriasis, the patient honestly believes he or she has a particular medical disorder and, like the FD patient, may seek contact from multiple physicians, emergency departments, and hospitals. In Somatization disorder medical examination detects the presence of physical symptoms that can't be attributed solely to a general medical condition, the effects of substances (drugs) or by other mental disorders (e.g. panic disorder). In other words, in somatization disorder, patients have a verifiable medical condition such as pain, gastrointestinal, sexual, or neurological symptoms that "cannot be fully explained by a known general medical condition or the direct effects of a substance."

[edit] References

American Psychiatric Association (1997). DSM-IV Somatoform Disorders. APA, 445-450.
Eisendrath, Stuart J. (Feb 1984). Factitious illness: a clarification. Psychosomatics, 25(2):110-3, 116-7. PMID 6701283.
Feldman, Marc D., Charles V. Ford, Toni Reinhold (1993). Patient or Pretender: Inside the Strange World of Factitious Disorders. John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0-471-58080-5.
Eisendrath, Stuart J. (editor), Feldman, Marc D. (editor) (August 1996). The Spectrum of Factitious Disorders (Clinical Practice, 40). American Psychiatric Publishing; 1st ed edition, 229. ISBN 0-88048-909-X.