MAIDS - Strona Główna

Mental health is central to building a healthy, inclusive and productive society, according to the World Health Organisation. But WHO also regards HIV/AIDS as the most demanding public health and social challenge of the last 25 years.

However, the connection between these two issues is rarely made in the mind of the public, policy-makers or health professionals, and mental health concerns are often overlooked in programs for HIV preventions and care.

Taking the importance of that issue in mind, WHO in the Report by its Secretariat (November 2008) recommended that HIV and mental health issues should be included into National strategies/policies on HIV. The mental health problems associated with HIV infection are well documented.

Around three quarters of people with HIV/AIDS have at least one psychiatric disorder in their lifetime*.

Developing AIDS or simply being HIV-positive has a major impact on individual mental health. All chronic, life-threatening conditions bring particular stressors such as long-term discomfort, physical deterioration, physical and financial dependence and the prospect of untimely death. Additional issues such as discrimination, social denial, stigma, isolation, fear of disclosure, fear of infection, multiple death and loss, and the sheer cumulative impact of such stressors, mean that HIV/AIDS has a profound psychological and social impact. Mental health problems can emerge at any stage of HIV infection, including the time around HIV testing, disease progression, illness and death, and are associated with the many mental, physical and spiritual adjustments and losses that individuals confront. Those who develop the infection often come from groups who have already experienced social rejection, disadvantage and poor health, such as drug abusers, commercial sex workers, men having sex with men and prisoners.

The following problems, including mental health problems, can emerge during HIV infection (based on more extensive reviews available in Catalan et al 1995, Catalan J 1999, Citron K et al 2005):

Mental patients and HIV

Mental disorder, when it precedes HIV infection can be an important risk factor for contracting the virus. Certain psychiatric disorders, including substance abuse, increase vulnerability to HIV infection. International studies show that HIV risk among people with serious mental illness has been associated with lack of condom use, multiple sexual partners, trading sex for money or goods, and injection drug use. Lack of appreciation of risk, impaired social interactions, lower levels of assertiveness, coercive sexual encounters, social exclusion and homelessness also contribute to high infection rates.