---
title: "A Quarter of Americans Admit Exaggerating or Inventing Symptoms to Get Antibiotics"
description: "Surveys of nearly 1,000 people trace the lie to fear, deadlines and old dismissals in the examination room"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-11-03T16:07:25.002Z
modified: 2026-11-03T17:28:18Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/a-quarter-of-americans-admit-exaggerating-or-inventing-sympt-64ab9a
language: en
tags: ["health", "antibiotics", "misinformation", "resistance", "trust", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# A Quarter of Americans Admit Exaggerating or Inventing Symptoms to Get Antibiotics

*Surveys of nearly 1,000 people trace the lie to fear, deadlines and old dismissals in the examination room*

By Jan Sokol · November 3, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-quarter-of-americans-admit-exaggerating-or-inventing-sympt-64ab9a

## In brief

- 28% of nearly 1,000 surveyed Americans said they had exaggerated or invented symptoms to obtain antibiotics, 27% for a child
- Top motives: feeling very sick, believing only antibiotics would work, and needing to return to work or school
- Antibiotics do nothing against viruses; misuse brings side-effect risks and worsens antimicrobial resistance
- The CDC estimates drug-resistant infections cause 9.7 million US cases and about 50,800 deaths a year
- The Utah Health-led studies, published in JAMA Network Open on Oct. 30, urge better doctor–patient communication, not suspicion

The doctor’s office is one of the last courts where ordinary people still petition for relief. The patient waits; the authority behind the desk holds the pen, and the pen holds the antibiotic. A pair of new studies now tells us what happens inside that small court when the petitioner fears the plea will fail: more than a quarter of Americans have exaggerated their symptoms, or invented them outright, to walk out with a prescription in hand.

The findings come from surveys of nearly 1,000 people nationwide, [reported by University of Utah Health](https://attheu.utah.edu/health-medicine/many-americans-exaggerate-or-make-up-symptoms-to-obtain-antibiotics/) and published Oct. 30 in JAMA Network Open as “Symptom Misrepresentation to Obtain Antibiotics” and “Caregiver Symptom Misrepresentation to Obtain Antibiotics in Pediatric Encounters.” The numbers are steady and unsettling. Some 28% of respondents said they had deliberately misrepresented their symptoms to obtain antibiotics for themselves; 27% said they had done it on behalf of a child in their care, stretching a malady larger or conjuring one where none existed.

## The anatomy of a small lie

Every lie has its biography, and the survey reads them like case files. The most common motive was feeling very sick — or believing a child was very sick — and being convinced that antibiotics were the only treatment that would work. Others pointed to the tyranny of the calendar: an adult who needed to recover fast enough to return to work, a child who had to get back to school. Some simply wanted command of their own treatment path.

![A seated person blows an enormous red balloon while a hand across a desk holds a red and blue capsule.](https://rews.cc/img/6221e7d65c654f5d3e99ce56dc6d44f35d740726.webp)

“It is a tough situation,” said co-lead author Alistair Thorpe, research assistant professor of population health sciences at University of Utah Health. “People are experiencing unpleasant symptoms, and they can have this strong feeling that antibiotics are the only thing that can help them feel better. Being told to just rest and wait is a hard thing to do, and if you think there’s something that could make you feel better, it’s a very hard impulse to override.”

## A medicine aimless against the enemy

Here the story darkens, because antibiotics do nothing against viral infections — the most common cause of cold- and flu-like symptoms. The petitioner wins the prescription, swallows the pills, and the pills sit idle against the actual illness. And they are not inert candy. “These medications are not totally benign for the patient,” said co-author Andrea Levy, professor of social sciences at Connecticut State Community College Middlesex. “And antibiotic use contributes to increasing antimicrobial resistance, which is a broader public health concern.”

That broader concern is immense. According to [the CDC’s 2026 Antimicrobial Resistance Threats Report](https://www.cdc.gov/antimicrobial-resistance/about/index.html), drug-resistant bacteria and fungi now cause more than 9.7 million infections in the United States each year and kill some 50,800 people. Each unnecessary prescription is a drill in which microbes learn to survive the weapons aimed at them. The researchers’ conclusion follows: doctors need a complete, accurate picture of symptoms to prescribe antibiotics when they will help — and to withhold them when they might harm.

![A teal bacterium is wrapped in pink and navy capsules, with loose pills nearby and one capsule flying away against a peach background.](https://rews.cc/img/4e6b9ad1a9cc9df7668beb78b44abf8b0444d272.webp)

## The memory of the dismissed patient

The researchers are careful, almost tender, about where the fault lies, and it is not simply in the liar. They emphasize that the goal is not to blame people for misrepresenting symptoms. The reasons, they note, are often grounded in past experience. People were more likely to overstate symptoms if a doctor had dismissed or downplayed their complaints before. The exaggeration is learned at the same desk where it is later performed.

There is a second teacher, subtler still. Being incorrectly prescribed antibiotics for an earlier viral infection can forge a powerful association between the pills and recovery, Thorpe added. Viral infections usually clear on their own, and it is easy for people to credit the antibiotic for what time accomplished. The miswritten prescription of years past becomes the conviction the patient carries back through the door.

“There are very understandable reasons that we can sympathize with about why patients might feel the need to misrepresent symptoms, or why caregivers might do so on behalf of their children,” Levy said. “We’re simply saying: perhaps there’s a better way.”

![A vintage-style hourglass with pink sand casts a long, dark shadow ending in a pink eraser shape on a textured cream background.](https://rews.cc/img/332440711551dfe4df816e9dd6ee54a622725554.webp)

## The word, not the pill

The better way, the researchers say, runs through talk. Doctors need approaches that leave patients feeling heard and taken seriously even when antibiotics would not help; patients need ways to express what they feel and what they want. “Going forward, it will be important to test different ways to change the communication patterns between patients and their clinicians,” said Angela Fagerlin, professor and chair of the university’s Department of Population Health Sciences and senior author on the studies.

> “The practical takeaway is not for clinicians to become more suspicious of their patients. Instead, clinicians need to create interactions where caregivers and patients feel heard enough that they don’t feel the need to exaggerate in order to be taken seriously.” — Andrea Levy

“Patients regularly feel this way,” Thorpe said. “It should be a priority for us to identify strategies for reassuring people, re-earning trust and finding the right ways to address their concerns. We want a long-term relationship between a patient and health care provider to be based on trust, openness, transparency and people having each other’s best intentions in mind.” In the end, the survey measures something older than any prescription pad: the distance between the person who pleads and the person who decides, and what grows in that distance when trust runs dry.