Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology

A factitious disorder case applied to hospital with psychotic symptoms and manifested itself with hallucinations

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology 2014; 24: Supplement S259-S259
Read: 507 Published: 17 February 2021

Factious disorder can be defined as producing symptoms of physical or mental illness in a voluntary or involuntary way, playing sick role and providing emotional satisfaction through the characteristics mentioned above. Patients mostly lead to surgical interventions and hospitalization because of unveiling these symptoms as factious, aggravating or diverting them. The prevalence of factious disorder is precisely unknown and case reports and case series are substantial since the nature of the disorder inhibits the traditional epidemiological studies. In the so-called study, a case, which was directed to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service with psychotic disorder pre-diagnosis; had approximately 20 weeks hospitalization and diagnosed with factious disorder during this period will be discussed. In the history of a 17-year-old high school student case, it was recorded that the patient had complaints for nearly 5 years such as seeing creatures, hearing noises and smelling odors that nobody experienced. Moreover, there were other complaints that so-called creatures and people could harm her and she could think about other people’s dialogues about herself in the last 2 years period. As a result of some behaviors that have been seen for the last two months such as harming herself added to this table; she was directed to our service by a child psychiatrist upon a consideration that she could need an inpatient treatment. It was also discovered in the follow-up that several antipsychotic drugs were tried for her treatment; however, there was no regular use. Antipsychotic treatment of the patient was discontinued in the sixth week as she met the factious disorder criteria according to DSM 5, which had been actualized by 20-week hospitalization therapy period at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Inpatient Service and because there were no defined or supplemented psychotic symptoms observed. In the proceeding period, the patient was reinitiated lower dose antipsychotic treatment in the 18th week as there were impulse control issues. Probable causes of patient’s displaying factious disorder during the hospitalization period were studied. While the patient’s partial awareness increased associated with underlying causes of her psychotic symptoms at the end of the hospitalization period, it was observed that pseudo hallucination and pseudo delusions continued. The issues such as the period of diagnosis with factious disorder, individual or familial characteristics leading to factious disorder, possible incorrect and/or inappropriate medication alternatives of the patient who applied to us with psychotic symptoms were dealt with related literature involved.

EISSN 2475-0581