Pediatric presentations of factitious disorder (Munchausen syndrome) remain underdiagnosed and poorly understood compared to adult cases. The purpose of this study is to review the current literature on child and adolescent factitious disorder in order to better understand the differences between pediatric and adult presentations of this disorder. We also present the case of an adolescent girl with factitious disorder; her hospital course draws attention to the excessive healthcare expenditures and risk of iatrogenic complications associated with this diagnosis. We utilized MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases to conduct our review. Despite the limited number of high-quality studies analyzing pediatric presentations of factitious disorder, our review yielded several important findings. Studies suggest that the general acceptance of somatization as a common way for young people to manifest emotional stress may explain the under-diagnosis of this disorder in pediatric populations. Studies also highlighted differences in the clinical characteristics of factitious disorder when patients are stratified by age; most notably, younger patients are more willing to admit intentional falsifications when confronted and more likely to accept treatment, making them a potentially more effective target for intervention.

与成人病例相比，人为障碍（Munchausen 综合征）的儿科表现仍未得到充分诊断和了解。本研究的目的是回顾目前关于儿童和青少年人为障碍的文献，以更好地了解这种障碍的儿童和成人表现之间的差异。我们还介绍了一个患有人为障碍的青春期女孩的案例；她的医院课程引起了人们对与该诊断相关的过度医疗保健支出和医源性并发症风险的关注。我们利用 MEDLINE 和 Google Scholar 数据库进行审查。尽管分析人为障碍的儿科表现的高质量研究数量有限，但我们的审查得出了几个重要的发现。研究表明，人们普遍接受躯体化是年轻人表现情绪压力的一种常见方式，这可能解释了这种疾病在儿科人群中诊断不足的原因。研究还强调了按年龄对患者进行分层时，人为障碍的临床特征存在差异；最值得注意的是，年轻患者在面对时更愿意承认故意造假，也更有可能接受治疗，这使他们成为可能更有效的干预目标。