Have you ever lied about not feeling well because you secretly rather be doing something else exciting? Maybe you called in sick at work because your favourite international artist is performing live in your town and you don’t want to miss the show.
If you answered yes, you are definitely not the only one. Experts refer to this behaviour as malingering. According to the WebMD publication, ”Malingering is pretending to have an illness in order to get a benefit. The feigned illness can be mental or physical.
“Malingering is also when someone exaggerates symptoms of an illness for the same purpose. Malingering is an act, not a condition.” This publication further mentions that in the 1900s, the term malingering was first used to characterise soldiers who tried to avoid military service.
Psychology Today mentions that drug addicts may also pretend to be sick or in pain in order to get illegal substances like opioids. The publication also states that while many instances of malingering are very obvious, diagnosing more specific cases of malingering can be particularly difficult for medical professionals, psychologists, or psychiatrists. “Malingering can lead to abuse of the medical system, with unnecessary tests being performed and time taken away from other patients.”
Types of malingering
The Charlie Health publication states that there are different types of malingering that people use depending on their motives, here they are briefly explained;
Pure malingering: This occurs when someone completely makes up a disease or disability that doesn’t exist.
Partial lingering: In this instance, the individual exaggerates the intensity or effect of their symptoms to benefit themselves, while having a real sickness or impairment.
False imputation: This kind of deceit involves actual symptoms of an irrelevant cause. “For instance, someone might falsely claim their back pain is due to a work-related incident to receive worker’s compensation.”
Simulation: Here, the malinger imitates signs of a certain illness that they do not actually have. To make the deception seem credible, they could conduct an in-depth study on the disease.
How to spot malingering
The Medscape publication mentioned that a prolonged examination and observation of an individual suspected of malingering can reveal evidence since the person may not be fully aware of the pretended disease and may find it difficult to maintain consistency with false claims. “Questions about improbable symptoms may yield positive responses. However, because some of these techniques may induce similar responses in some patients with genuine psychiatric disorders, exercise caution in reaching a conclusion of malingering.”
Also see: How you can benefit from effective communication in the workplace
