Levetiracetam induces severe psychiatric symptoms in people with epilepsy.

Drug-induced psychiatric symptoms are an important cause of treatment failure. Worldwide, levetiracetam has been widely used to treat epilepsy; however, associated psychobehavioral abnormalities have been observed . This study aimed to characterize levetiracetam-induced severe psychiatric symptoms and to propose preventive and therapeutic measures. In this retrospective cluster sampling study, psychiatric symptoms of patients who had taken levetiracetam for at least 1 month were analyzed. 111(7.8%) of the 1,412 included patients exhibited severe psychiatric symptoms. Hallucinations, delusions, aggressive behavior, and agitation were the most common manifestations . Some patients also showed suicidal and self-harm behaviors. These symptoms were mainly controlled by reducing the dose of levetiracetam, stopping the drug, or adding antipsychotic drugs to the treatment regimen. The severe psychiatric symptoms caused by levetiracetam require special attention. Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Citation

Kaiyan Tao, Hongnian Chen, Yuanyuan Chen, Yixue Gu, Xuefeng Wang. Levetiracetam induces severe psychiatric symptoms in people with epilepsy. Seizure. 2024 Mar;116:147-150

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PMID: 36535885

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