Increase in child fabricated illnesses

FABRICATED ILLNESS in children is “more common” than people believe, experts have said.

“Doctor Google” and social media could be contributing to an increase in parents having misbeliefs about child illnesses, children’s doctors suggested.

It comes as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health launched new guidance about fabricated or induced illness (FII) in children – previously known as Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. Experts said that cases arise when parents either believe that their child has an illness when they do not, or in some rare instances cause the illness themselves.

Previous guidance focused on the rare, and more severe cases, where parents were actively causing harm to children.

But there are a number of cases where a parent’s misbelief that their child is being affected by an illness when they are not could inadvertently be causing them harm – by causing them to miss school, become socially isolated or perhaps undergo unnecessary medical tests.

Medics said this sort of case has become “a lot more common”.

While experts do not have exact figures to show the scale of the problem, they said that most paediatricians will have had a case on their books in the last two years.

Dr Danya Glaser, visiting professor at UCL and honorary consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “The particular child or children may have a genuine illness too but the parents are trying to convince doctors that there’s something more wrong with the child.

“The caregivers or parents do this mostly just by talking about the child and describing the child’s symptoms, treatments, diagnoses, and so on.”