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A multisite study of the prevalence of HIV with rapid testing in mental health settings
Michael B Blank1, Seth S Himelhoch, Alexandra B Balaji
1Michael B. Blank and David S. Metzger are with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. Seth S. Himelhoch is with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. Alexandra B. Balaji, Charles E. Rose, and James D. Heffelfinger are with the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Lisa B. Dixon is with the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY. Emeka Oraka is with ICF International, Atlanta. Annet Davis-Vogel is with the HIV/AIDS Prevention Research Division, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. William W. Thompson is with the Division of Population Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.
Objectives:
We estimated HIV prevalence and risk factors among persons receiving mental health treatment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, January 2009 to August 2011.
Methods:
We used a multisite, cross-sectional design stratified by clinical setting. We tested 1061 individuals for HIV in university-based inpatient psychiatric units (n = 287), intensive case-management programs (n = 273), and community mental health centers (n = 501).
Results:
Fifty-one individuals (4.8%) were HIV-infected. Confirmed positive HIV tests were 5.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.7%, 9.4%) for inpatient units, 5.1% (95% CI = 3.1%, 8.5%) for intensive case-management programs, and 4.0% (95% CI = 2.6%, 6.1%) for community mental health centers. Characteristics associated with HIV included Black race, homosexual or bisexual identity, and HCV infection.
Conclusions:
HIV prevalence for individuals receiving mental health services was about 4 times as high as in the general population. We found a positive association between psychiatric symptom severity and HIV infection, indicating that engaging persons with mental illness in appropriate mental health treatment may be important to HIV prevention. These findings reinforce recommendations for routine HIV testing in all clinical settings to ensure that HIV-infected persons receiving mental health services are identified and referred to timely infectious disease care.
