Factitious disorder

A factitious disorder is a mental disorder in which a person, without a malingering motive, acts as if they have an illness by deliberately producing, feigning, or exaggerating symptoms, purely to attain (for themselves or for another) a patient's role. People with a factitious disorder may produce symptoms by contaminating urine samples, taking hallucinogens, injecting fecal material to produce abscesses, and similar behaviour. The word factitious derives from the Latin word factītius, meaning "human-made".

Factitious disorder imposed on self (also called Munchausen syndrome) was for some time the umbrella term for all such disorders.^[1] Factitious disorder imposed on another (also called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, Munchausen by proxy, or factitious disorder by proxy) is a condition in which a person deliberately produces, feigns, or exaggerates the symptoms of someone in their care. In either case, the perpetrator's motive is to attain (for themselves or for another) a patient's role. Malingering differs fundamentally from factitious disorders in that the malingerer simulates illness intending to obtain a material benefit or avoid an obligation or responsibility.

These should not be confused with somatic symptom disorders or functional neurological disorders; while both are also diagnoses of exclusion, they are characterized by physical complaints that are not produced intentionally.^[2]