Mass psychogenic illness | |
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Other names | Mass hysteria, epidemic hysteria, mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder |
Dancing plagues of the Middle Ages are thought to have been caused by mass hysteria. | |
Specialty | Psychiatry, clinical psychology |
Symptoms | Headache, dizziness, nausea, abdominal pain, cough, fatigue, sore throat |
Risk factors | Childhood or adolescence, female sex, intense media coverage |
Differential diagnosis | Actual diseases, mass delusions, somatic symptom disorder |
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria or mass hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for contagion.[1] It is the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss, or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic causes that are known.[2]