Nearly 30% of US adults admit to lying about or exaggerating their symptoms to get antibiotics from doctors, survey finds

Nearly 30% of U.S. adults have lied to doctors about their symptoms to obtain antibiotics, either by exaggerating actual symptoms or fabricating them entirely, according to two surveys published Friday in JAMA Network Open. About 27% of caregivers also reported lying about children's symptoms to get antibiotics.

The first survey included nearly 960 adults surveyed in January and February 2026. About 28% reported misrepresenting their symptoms, with 26% exaggerating existing symptoms and 17% fabricating symptoms. They most frequently lied about cold-like symptoms such as fever, cough and sore throat. About two-thirds of these patients were at least moderately confident their lie would motivate a prescription, and 77% said the strategy worked at least once.

Patients who lied often felt very sick and believed antibiotics would help them recover quickly. They wanted control over their treatment and felt clinicians didn't take them seriously. Compared with those who didn't lie, people who misrepresented symptoms were more likely to endorse statements suggesting antibiotic resistance is a hoax. Less than 30% of patients who lied expressed regret.

The second survey included 236 caregivers of children and teens under 18. About 27% reported lying about their child's symptoms to get antibiotics, with 87% believing their deception worked at least once.

The inappropriate use of antibiotics contributes to antibiotic resistance. Recent CDC data show that in 2023, drug-resistant bacteria and fungi caused about 9.7 million infections in the U.S., up from 2.8 million in 2017. Estimated deaths from drug-resistant germs rose from 35,000 to 50,800 between those years.

Dr. Jeffrey Linder, a general internist at Northwestern Medicine, noted in a commentary that clinicians should base prescribing decisions on diagnosis, not on patients' symptom descriptions alone. "It does not track that approximately 80% of respondents who reported misrepresenting their symptoms obtained a prescription," Linder wrote, "unless prescribers were being willfully deceived or, more likely, just getting worn down with what they perceive as patient demand, regardless of actual clinical appropriateness."

The survey respondents were diverse but not necessarily representative of the whole U.S. population, the authors noted. Not all respondents who lied may have disclosed or remembered doing so.