Abstract

Urinary retention and / or voiding difficulty are a rare side effect caused by the second generation antipsychotics. Aripiprazole has a lower incidence of adverse effects than other second generation antipsychotics (SGA) and aripiprazole can be used as an alternative treatment on patients who have urinary retention depending on antipsychotic use. Although there are limited data in literature about the effect of aripiprazole on urinary retention, a case was encountered urinary retention with the use of antidepressants and aripiprazole together. Also there is only one case in the literature about urinary retention occurred with aripiprazole. Our case emerged urinary retention with the addition of aripiprazole while under treatment of paroxetine. Patient’s complaints have stopped with the discontinuation of aripiprazole and never emerged under treatment of paroxetine and risperidone. We aimed to contribute this case because there is limited data in literature about this subject. As a result, adrenergic, cholinergic, serotonergic, dopaminergic and histaminergic pathways have role on control of micturition but it is not clear that on which pathway aripiprazole acts on urination. However there is no symptom of urinary retention after stopping aripiprazole and adding risperidone, shows that there is a different mechanism associated with voiding in this case. Additional studies need to be done to clarify the mechanism.

Key words: Urinary retention, aripiprazole, side effect