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Home / FAQ / What makes clinicians confident that they are defining a discrete group of patients within the diagnosis of FND?

What makes clinicians confident that they are defining a discrete group of patients within the diagnosis of FND?

Several lines of evidence come together to provide some confidence that the diagnosis of FND can be made, at least in sufficiently experienced hands, in a way that is helpful to patients.

Clinicians will not always get it right, just as they will sometimes misdiagnose faints as epilepsy, FND as multiple sclerosis or spinal disease as motor neurone disease. Each time that happens is a tragedy for that individual but that shouldn’t mean that no doctor should make diagnoses.

References:

  1. Stone J, Smyth R, Carson A, et al. Systematic review of misdiagnosis of conversion symptoms and ‘hysteria’. BMJ 2005; 331: 989.