Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), or mass hysteria, describes the phenomenon where a large group of people develop certain irrational thoughts, behaviors, or health conditions collectively. Silvia Penate’s Case Study presents the 2012 mass psychogenic illness of breast cancer in Ethiopia, where 120 women developed symptoms of breast cancer following the death of a woman from breast cancer in her 40s.
As doctors were unable to detect anything wrong with these women’s health, many became dissatisfied and sought out traditional methods of healing, which sometimes brought harm to these individuals. Finally, Penate concludes her study with remarks on how MPI can be effectively addressed to reduce their negative public health impacts.