[Factitious disorders].

Patients with factitious disorders intentionally fabricate, exaggerate or feign physical and/or psychiatric symptoms for various open and covert psychological reasons. There are many issues regarding the diagnostic state and classification of factitious disorders. Both the categorical differentiation of and clinical continuum ranging from somatoform/dissociative disorders to malingering are being controversially debated. Epidemiological studies on the frequency of factitious disorder meet basic methodological difficulties. Reported rates of prevalence and incidence in the professional literature most probably have to be considered underestimations. Illness deception and self-harm as core features of the abnormal illness behaviour in factitious disorder may refer to various highly adverse and traumatic experiences during early development in a subgroup of patients. Chronic courses of illness prevail; however, there are also episodic variants.