A study to understand the pattern of hyponatremia in patients using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and...

Hyponatremia can be a common but often overlooked side effects of psychotropics drugs. Most patients with drug-induced hyponatremia are asymptomatic and diagnosis is made incidentally following routine blood tests.

The aim of the study was to understand the pattern of hyponatremia in patients using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and serotonin dopamine antagonists (SDA).

All inpatients and outpatients who were diagnosed with International Classification of Diseases-10 psychiatric disorders and undergoing treatment with SSRI, SDA, or combination of both for the same, were included in the study after simple random sampling, subject to inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Categorical variables were observed as numbers and percentages. Continuous variables were evaluated as mean ± standard deviation. A Chi-square test was done to find the association between categorical variables. SPSS (IBM) version 21 was used for data analysis.

In 150 patients, we found hyponatremia in 17 patients (11.33%). About 66-75 age group patients had maximum found cases of hyponatremia (66.66%). About 20.31% of females found hyponatremia. Among SSRIs, 16% of individuals had hyponatremia whereas among SDA it was 6%. Patients who were taking both SSRIs and SDA total prevalence of hyponatremia was 12%.

Older age groups and females had higher chances of hyponatremia while taking SSRIs and SDAs. Among SSRIs, escitalopram had maximum percentage of hyponatremia, whereas fluvoxamine had minimum. Among SDAs, risperidone had maximum percentage, whereas quetiapine had minimum percentage of hyponatremia. Patients who were taking both fluoxetine + olanzapine or fluoxetine + risperidone had higher percentage of hyponatremia.