Personality profiles of factitious disorder imposed by mothers: A comparative analysis

ABSTRACT

Factitious Disorder Imposed by Another (FDIA) can be difficult to expeditiously identify. Understanding personality characteristics of FDIA perpetrators via psychological assessment may decrease the time between initial abuse and identification of FDIA. Personality characteristics of FDIA mother-perpetrators were examined through a comparative analysis of MMPI-2 profiles. It was predicted that mother-perpetrators would have significantly higher overall profile elevations on the MMPI-2 and elevations on specific clinical scales than a comparative control group. Results indicated that mother-perpetrators displayed significantly higher, elevations on the Psychasthenia (Pt) and Schizophrenia (Sc) scales and a trend toward significantly higher elevation on the Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) scale than the control group. These findings, along with the demographic information obtained, establish a preliminary foundation for understanding an overall profile of mother-perpetrators.

KEYWORDS:

• Factitious Disorder Imposed by Another
• MMPI-2
• mother-perpetrators
• personality characteristics

Disclosure of interest

Authors Lauren B. Day, Jan Faust, Ryan A. Black, Deborah O. Day, and Anita Alexander declare that they have no conflicts to report.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained for all participants for being included in the study.

Notes

p-value adjusted for departure from sphericity by employing the Greenhouse-Geisser correction.

The variances between groups on the Hysteria (Hy) scale were significantly different, p = .018.