Abstract:

Corticosteroids are frequently used to treat variety of medical conditions in children. Psychiatric adverse events of these drugs are not rare. The most common adverse effects of corticosteroids therapy includes irritability, sleep disturbances, emotional lability, behavioral changes, anxiety, depression, psychosis, euphoria, and hypomania/mania. Euphoria and hypomania are reported as the most common side effects of short-term corticosteroid therapy and in chronic use depression is observed more frequently than mania. The mechanism of the psychiatric side effects of corticosteroids is unclear. Methylphenidate is commonly used to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is reported in some studies that methylphenidate can trigger or aggravate hypomania/mania symptoms. However, in contrast to these studies, there exist some other ones that methylphenidate are useful for hypomania treatment. In this case report, a child patient who are subjected to hypomania progression because of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the use of corticosteroids, and hypomania symptoms are controlled with the use of methylphenidate is discussed.

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