A rare, difficult to treat disorder. Sufferers habitually attempt to hospitalize themselves with self-defined or self-induced pathology, yearning for a surgical remedy. No definitive etiology has been established. In DSM-III-R, this syndrome is diagnosed as chronic factitious disorder with physical symptoms.
Patients with this disorder demonstrate factitious medical or psychiatric symptoms with awareness that they are lying, but are unaware of the underlying need for attention, resulting in numerous tests, treatments, and surgeries.
Abnormal blowing or roaring heart sounds heard on auscultation, caused by defective valves or chambers of the heart.
A mental disorder in which the patient persistently tries to obtain hospital treatment for an illness that is nonexistent: an extreme form of malingering. The disease may be described in vivid detail, and in some cases injury may be deliberately self-inflicted in an attempt to give the appearance of authenticity to the claims being made.