Common side effects of imipramine include dry mouth, drowsiness, dizziness, low blood pressure, rapid heart rate, urinary retention, and electrocardiogram changes.

Imipramine and TCAs other than amitriptyline (which, at least in the U.K., is prescribed comparatively as frequently as SSRIs) have decreased in prescription frequency with the rise of SSRIs—which have fewer inherent side effects and are far safer in overdose.

A significant amount of research regarding its efficacy on acute post-traumatic stress in children and adolescents has focused on trauma resulting from burn-injuries.

[16] It has also been used to treat nocturnal enuresis because of its ability to shorten the time of delta wave stage sleep, where wetting occurs.

This category includes medications such as isocarboxazid, linezolid, methylene blue, phenelzine, selegiline, moclobemide, procarbazine, rasagiline, safinamide, and tranylcypromine.

[18][19] These side effects can be contributed to the multiple receptors that imipramine targets such as serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, acetylcholine, epinephrine, histamine.

[20] Some side effects may be beneficial in some cases, e.g. reduction of hyperactive gag reflex; reduced random or physical strain-linked urinary leakage.

Some medications used for various conditions such as high blood pressure, mental illness, nausea, Parkinson's disease, asthma, colds, or allergies.

The mechanisms of imipramine's actions include, but are not limited to, effects on: Bethanechol may also be able to alleviate the sexual-dysfunction symptoms which may occur in the context of tricyclic-antidepressant treatment.

[56] Imipramine is a tricyclic compound, specifically a dibenzazepine, and possesses three rings fused together with a side chain attached in its chemical structure.

[72] However, imipramine was serendipitously found to possess antidepressant effects in the mid-1950s following a case report of symptom improvement in a woman with severe depression who had been treated with it.

At the first international congress of neuropharmacology in Rome, September 1958 Dr Freyhan from the University of Pennsylvania discussed as one of the first clinicians the effects of imipramine in a group of 46 patients, most of them diagnosed as "depressive psychosis".

The patients were selected for this study based on symptoms such as depressive apathy, kinetic retardation and feelings of hopelessness and despair.

Before the advent of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), its sometimes intolerable side-effect profile was considered more tolerable.

Imipramine is the English and French generic name of the drug and its INNTooltip International Nonproprietary Name, BANTooltip British Approved Name, and DCFTooltip Dénomination Commune Française, while imipramine hydrochloride is its USANTooltip United States Adopted Name, USPTooltip United States Pharmacopeia, BANMTooltip British Approved Name, and JANTooltip Japanese Accepted Name.

[63][64][78][79] Its generic name in Spanish and Italian and its DCITTooltip Denominazione Comune Italiana are imipramina, in German is imipramin, and in Latin is imipraminum.