Introduction Hypokalemia is often detected on standard biological assessments of SAC À DOS patients hospitalized for psychiatric disorders.Many explanations are advanced by clinicians like insufficient food intake or drug effects.But what if there was a relationship between this ionic disorder and psychotic relapses? Objectives To assess the frequency of hypokalemia in patients hospitalized for a psychotic relapse and to study its relationship with certain clinical characteristics.Methods This is a cross-sectional study conducted over a 3-month period (july-september 2021), including 37 male patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for a psychotic relapse.
Patients had blood collection before medication that was sent for a complete blood count and blood chemistry testing.Results Blood potassium level ranged from 2.92 to 4.87 mmol/L with an average of 3.
74 mmol/l.Half patients ( 54.1% , N=20 ) had hypokalemia.Among them, two had electric signs on their ECG and two had physical symptoms.
In patients with hypokalemia, the cause of hospitalization was the Diabetes Monitoring - Glucose Meters agitation in 80% of cases versus 58.8% in patients with normal potassium levels.The correlation was not significant between hypokalemia and the use of a restraint (p=0.160) or the somatic history (p=0.
495).Conclusions hypokalemia is an ionic disorder that should be detected in patients with schizophrenia.It exposes the patient to the risk of a sudden death, especially with use of antipsychotics that are at a high risk for torsade de pointes.Disclosure No significant relationships.