title: Confidentiality issues in patients who have misinformed their families.
abstract: As medical practitioners, we occasionally encounter patients who have misinformed their families of their medical histories. We describe a case of a patient whose age is in the mid-40s, who we believe had factitiously constructed a serious illness. This patient had suffered an acute exacerbation of chronic asthma and later died. When the partner was informed, the partner reported that they understood the patient had been regularly visiting our hospital for cancer treatment. No record of this could be found. This created an ethical dilemma of what could be told to the family. The patient was on the Organ Donor Register and would have been suitable to act as a donor, but to do so may have indirectly alerted the family to the patient's true condition. There was also the issue of whether the patient's children might seek unnecessary screening.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003142:Communication; D003219:Confidentiality / Q000941:ethics*; D003657:Decision Making; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D019564:Unnecessary Procedures