‘Training needed to spot fake illnesses disorder’

MEDICAL staff need to be trained in handling patients deliberately simulating illnesses, according to researchers, following a study of patients with Munchausen Syndrome presenting in hospitals.

Patients with the disorder used fake names, experienced delusions and simulated symptoms of sicknesses in a Dublin hospital.

Doctors and nurses should be made aware of the condition so unnecessary procedures and treatment can be avoided, the study said.

Patients with Munchausen Syndrome concoct symptoms of illnesses in order to gain admission to a hospital, thereby getting attention and comfort from staff, the research said.

Typically, affected patients have a history of repeated feigned sickness, pathological lying and a habit of wandering from hospital to hospital.

In one case in 2003, patient PB complained of complete amnesia and did not know his name address or occupation. Contact through a phone number on his person to his father revealed PB was “in the habit of going from hospital to hospital” and he was on a waiting list for his local psychiatric hospital.

Four years later, PB again turned up at the same Dublin hospital after a fall but under the alias of MC. Despite being in a relatively positive mood, he described having delusions of persecution. After he was discharged, it emerged that MC/PB had eight aliases in the hospital and had given different personal details and histories on admission.

The following day he was admitted to his local psychiatric hospital, describing symptoms of acute psychosis, after he was caught breaking into a house.

In another case, patient ID said he had no memory after travelling by boat from Holyhead, Wales, to Dublin. The 40-year-old male later admitted lying to doctors and said: “I have delusions about Andrea Corr.”

Doctors said he was cognitively intact and there was no evidence of psychotic symptoms. The patient’s medical record revealed he had escaped from a British psychiatric unit and had travelled to Ireland in a similar fashion previously.

In a further case at the Dublin hospital, POR, a 49-year-old woman, was referred from a breast clinic for psychiatric opinion after she falsely claimed she had four sisters who died before age 60, all from breast cancer.

The patient had solicited money from her congregation claiming to have breast cancer and her bishop had written to a surgeon inquiring if it was true.

When confronted with the diagnosis she had Munchausen Syndrome, the women became upset and changed her story.

The research by the Mater Hospital, published in this month’s Irish Medical Journal, notes the disorder may be more common than is known and in one Spanish study up to 8% of patients had the condition.

It calls for medical staff to be made more aware of the condition.