[Psychiatric side effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents]

The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often used all over the world. Their psychiatric side-effects are rarely known. We report a case of indomethacin related depersonalization and have done a review of literature. We wanted to show the NSAIDs's side-effects. These are non specific, they can be either affective disorders, depersonalization states, hallucinations, or paranoid psychosis (which seems to be the most frequent). The symptomatology is easily suppressed, as soon as NSAIDs are stopped and/or psychotherapeutic symptomatic treatment is started. Different explanations are proposed: prostaglandin inhibition for the NSAIDs in general, indolic molecular structure (which looks like serotonin) for the indomethacin in particular which is the NSAID the most find in these side effects. There is several studies about the role of prostaglandin in psychiatry above all about schizophrenia. Some therapeutic essays were realized with prostaglandins precursors. The rest of the nosology is less studied.