Abstract

To determine the prevalence and kind of mental morbidity in HIV-infected patients who are visiting a specialist HIV clinic for the first time. To evaluate the relationships between mental co-morbidity and several sociodemographic variables (age, gender, education) and disease-related variables (illness duration, HIV/AIDS stages, CD4 count, HIV-TB and other co-infections, and other opportunistic infections) and association between mental co-morbidity and treatment continuation variables including poor adherence and default history. This study included 171 individuals who consistently sought medical attention at the RDGMC, Ujjain Hospital General HIV Clinic. These individuals had a preliminary screening to determine the incidence of mental comorbidity in those receiving therapy for AIDS patients. A total of 56.14% were determined to have a mental disease, while another 16.94% had an active drug use problem. The patients' lifetime rates of alcohol abuse (14.61%), nicotine drug misuse (2.33%), anxiety disorder (4.67%), and generalised depression (24.56%) frequently occurred before they were diagnosed with a disease or learned whether they were HIV positive. Screening, assessing, and treating for these disorders is essential and need to be done methodically given the high frequency of mental illnesses in HIV-infected individuals seeking medical treatment. This is best accomplished by having a psychiatric team present within HIV medical clinics as opposed to being associated with such clinics

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