psychiatric disorders
Factitious Disorder Imposed on Self
Symptoms and Signs
Patients with factitious disorder imposed on self may complain of or simulate physical symptoms that suggest certain disorders (eg, abdominal pain suggesting an acute surgical abdomen, hematemesis). Patients often know many associated symptoms and features of the disorder that they are feigning (eg, that pain from a myocardial infarction may radiate to the left arm or jaw or be accompanied by diaphoresis). Sometimes they simulate or induce physical findings (eg, pricking a finger to contaminate a urine specimen with blood, injecting bacteria under their skin to produce fever or abscess; in such cases,Escherichia coliis often the infecting organism). Their abdominal wall may be crisscrossed by scars from exploratory laparotomies, or a digit or a limb may have been amputated. 