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 a patient role for themselves or for another. People with the disorder may contaminate urine samples, take hallucinogens or inject fecal material to produce abscesses. The word factitious comes from the Latin factitius, meaning human-made. Factitious disorder imposed on self, also called Munchausen syndrome, was for some time the umbrella term for all such disorders, while factitious disorder imposed on another, also called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, is a condition in which a person deliberately produces, feigns or exaggerates the symptoms of someone in their care. Malingering differs fundamentally because the malingerer simulates illness to obtain a material benefit or avoid an obligation, and the disorder should not be confused with somatic symptom disorders or functional neurological disorders, whose physical complaints are not produced intentionally.