Misdiagnosis in EDS

Misdiagnosis in patients with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

Paper published in a peer reviewed journal. You may download the full paper by clicking on the following link.

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/12/6/698

Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a complex pain disorder that is often misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed due to lack of awareness among healthcare providers and variability in diagnostic criteria. Between January 2010 and December 2018, the medical records of 429 patients who were diagnosed with hEDS were reviewed and analyzed. During the process of taking a history, patients were asked if they had previously been told by physicians who were not board- certified in psychiatry that their symptoms were “in their head”, that they were “making it up” or seeking attention, or that they might suffer from Munchausen syndrome by proxy or a factitious disorder, or if such physicians had diagnosed them with conversion disorder. The Brown University Human Research Protection Program determined that the proposed activity was not research involving human subjects.

Among the 429 patients, 405 patients (94.4%) said yes to at least one of the questions, with only 24 patients (5.6%) not having been misdiagnosed with psychiatric illnesses. A total of 378 patients (88%) were told that they were “making it up”, 326 patients (76%) were told that they were attention-seeking, 286 patients (67%) were diagnosed with conversion disorder, 255 patients (60%) were told that “it was in their head”, and 16 patients (4%) were diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy or a factitious disorder.

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