Rehabilitating Challenges: A Case Report of Folie À Famille Olutoki Michael 1,2* , Bassey Edet 1,2 , Yakasai Ba 3 , Joseph Okegbe 2 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Calabar, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria; 2 Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria; 3 Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kaduna State University, Kaduna State, Nigeria ABSTRACT Folie á famille is a form of shared psychotic disorder existing among family members; it is a condition in which symptoms of mental illness are transmitted from one individual to another in a family. Shared psychotic disorder is a rare type of mental illness in which a person with a stable mental state starts manifesting the symptoms of mental illness of someone that is mentally ill by the reason of close association with him or her. The discovery of a family of five in Bekwara Local Government area of Cross River State of Nigeria, in which a forty four year old man with a ten years history of second person auditory hallucination, wandering, grandiose delusion and tangentiality, successfully transferred these symptoms to his thirty three year old wife and three of his children; a four year old, a three year old and a two year old respectively. Florid religious delusion was responsible for the nomadic attitude displayed by this family and was also a factor in the successful transmission of the illness from the father to the other four subjects. Lots of negative life events were also a factor in this family. Family, friends, societal, and national neglect suffered by this family of five poses a peculiar challenge to the successful management and rehabilitation of these patients. Keywords: Mental health; Rehabilitation; Shared delusion; Shared psychosis; Wandering INTRODUCTION Folie á famille is a form of shared psychotic disorder an extention of folie á deux (delusions shared by two individuals) [1,2] occurring within a family and involving more than two members of the family. The affected family members have an unusually close relationship and they seems to exist in the world of their own. Folie á quatre which are delusions shared by more than four individuals is extremely rare, only a few cases has been reported [3-5]. Recently we treated a case of foli á famille involving a family of five with a proband who is a forty four year old man with a ten years history of second person auditory hallucination, wandering, grandiose delusion and tangentiality who successfully transferred these symptoms to his thirty three year old wife and three of his children; a four year old, a three year old and a two year old respectively. The female gender are affected more, lower intelligent quotient than the primary patient, very close relationship to the primary patient, low self-esteem [6], and life events have been suggested as the vulnerability factors. The aetiology is still unknown. Folie á deux was first described in 1877 by Laségue and Falret [7]. The only available report from a very diligent literature search in Nigeria or elsewhere in Africa is that reported by Ilechukwu and Okyere amongst two sisters [8]. The current report involves a whole family. Available literature on Folie á famille is scant, Onofia et al. [9] reported a case in Abeokuta, Nigeria a case that was largely interfered with by the mental health workers. We report a case folie á famille in the rural setting of Bekwara Local Government of Cross River state, Nigeria and its management at the Federal Neuro Psychiatric hospital Calabar. Journal of Psychiatry Case Report Correspondence to: Dr. Michael Olutoki, Department of Psychiatry, University of Calabar, Calabar, Cross River state, Nigeria, E-mail: michael.olutoki@unical.edu.ng Received: November 01, 2021; Accepted: November 15, 2021; Published: November 22, 2021 Citation: Olutoki M, Edet B, Ba Y, Okegbe J (2021) Rehabilitating Challenges: A Case Report of Folie À Famille. J Psychiatry. 24:484. Copyright: which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. J Psychiatry, Vol.24 Iss.10 No:1000484 1 © 2021 Olutoki M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,