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Feigned psychosis revisited –a 20 year follow up of 10 patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Martin Humphreys  and
Alan Ogilvie
Martin Humphreys*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH10 5HF
Alan Ogilvie
Affiliation:
MRC Brain Metabolism Unit, Royal Edinburgh Hospital
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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Feigned psychosis, although rare, presents considerable diagnostic problems in clinical psychiatric practice. Long-term follow up data are lacking. A retrospective case note study was undertaken of 10 patients described in a previous paper, published in 1970, on the simulation of psychosis. The computerised diagnostic instrument OPCRIT was applied to both index episode and lifetime occurrence of symptoms. All 10 patients were found to have had a major psychotic illness based on lifetime symptoms at 20 year follow-up by DSM–III–R criteria. Eight had met such criteria at the time of the initial episode. Diagnosis in patients thought to be feigning psychotic symptoms changes over time and major mental illness is likely to emerge which may be schizophrenic or affective. The term feigned psychosis should be abandoned and more attention given to why symptoms are accepted as genuine in some cases but not others.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 20 , Issue 11 , November 1996 , pp. 666 - 669
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

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