Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Corso di laurea in infermieristica - Sede di Modena
| Thesis Title | Clinical and care issues related to Münchhausen Syndrome: a case report |
|---|---|
| Name | Lannocca Ludovica |
| Supervisor(s) | Di Lorenzo Rosaria |
| Academic Year | 2016/17 |
| Thesis type | Research thesis |
Abstract
The Münchhausen Syndrome (MS) or factitious disorder is a psychiatric pathology characterized by psychic and/or somatic symptoms, that are constructed or exaggerated by the subject in order to assume the inpatient role. Differently from other psychiatric disorders, MS is not characterized by an altered judgment of reality as delusion neither by an altered state of consciousness as delirium or by a pathological conviction of illness as hypochondria, but by the compulsive need for undergoing medical and/or surgical, also invasive, procedures and treatments, often in inpatient hospital condition. From the review of scientific literature, we have described the historical and clinical characteristics of this disorder and its subtypes. Moreover, we have deepened the available treatments and care strategies.
We reported the clinical case of a 21-year-old patient, reconstructed through the clinical charts of two psychiatric hospitalizations in Modena and information collected by his local psychiatrist. In order to deepen in detail his care needs, we developed a nursing care plan, suggesting 6 nursing diagnoses, in accordance with the ''North American Nursing Diagnosis Association-International'' (NANDA-I), the objectives (NOC) and the interventions (NIC): Non compliance, Risk for Self-directed violence, Self neglect, Risk Prone Health Behavior, Risk for Injury, Risk for Infection. It is an emblematic case due to the condition of abandonment by his family, the factitious physical symptoms presented and the multiple invasive and mutilating surgical operations performed. His clinical course was so severe to have probably contributed to his early death. His life was characterized by the continuous wandering from one hospital to another, from one city to another, between one Country and another, with the constant refusal of appropriate care and treatments, probably dictated by his need “for hiding from others his emotional trauma he was not able to process”.