Mental Health Treatment for Persons with HIV/AIDs

Individuals with substance abuse disorders, whether or not they are HIV infected, are subject to higher rates of mental disorders than the rest of the population. In some studies of substance abusers, the lifetime prevalence of such disorders is as high as 51 percent (Kessler et al., 1996). However, the percentage of HIV-infected substance abusers with psychiatric disorders has not been ascertained. One study found that 79 percent of HIV-infected injection drug users in treatment required psychiatric consultation and 59 percent had psychiatric disorders other than substance abuse. Forty-five percent of these individuals had organic mental disorders, such as cognitive impairment, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders (Batki et al., 1996). Another study of inner-city adult HIV/AIDS clinics concluded that rates of psychiatric distress in patients of these clinics were much higher than in the general population or in other outpatient medical clinics (Lyketsos et al., 1996). There is some evidence that certain psychiatric disorders such as depression and antisocial personality disorder may be more common among HIV-infected persons with substance abuse disorders than among HIVinfected gay men (Ferrando and Batki, 1998).