LATENT DEPRESSION IN HIV AFFECTED WOMEN

Abstract

Depressions negatively affects the patients emotional state and it can determine the development of complications of somatic pathology. Using the «Scale for the Express Psychological Diagnosis of Low-Structured Depressive Disorders» [Bespal’ko I.G., 2004], We have identified masked depressions and apparent depressions accompanying somatic pathology in women in the dynamics of HIV infection, depending on their receipt of antiretroviral therapy. 84 women participated in the experimental psychological study (mean age 32,02±4,36) at different stages and for different duration of the disease. 62 patients received antiretroviral therapy in accordance with domestic and international recommendations, and 22 patients had a natural course of the disease. It was shown that 58% of women in the control group fell into the area of diagnostic uncertainty (the author of this technique consider that the normative group of healthy people occupies an intermediate zone of an indeterminate diagnosis, that is, the area between diseased neuroses and manic-depressive psychosis; that’s, the characterological signs of the scale in the healthy are moderately expressed, and in patients with a clear diagnosis of depression with neuroses or manic-depressive psychosis — to the extreme degree), and 20% in the neurotic spectrum of depression. In the groups of patients with HIV infection, regardless of their receive of antiretroviral therapy, similar results were obtained (to the field of diagnostic uncertainty, depending on the duration of the disease in its natural course, there were 63,64% of patients, against antiretroviral therapy — 58,10%, the neurotic spectrum of depression included 18,2% and 19,35% of patients, respectively). Single cases of depression on the scale I (D-N scale) are probably due to the premorbid properties of the personality of the respondents, both in the study group and in the control group. It is interesting to note the fact that in women with HIV infection both in the absence and in the presence of antiretroviral therapy, the level of endogenous (scale I) in the dynamics of the disease practically does not increase, remaining at the same time significantly higher (p 0,05). Since the question of the possibility of predicting the likelihood of developing HIV-associated psycho-neurological disorders remains open, this requires careful medical and psychological support of such patients.