The mental health status of HIV/AIDS patients and their immediate family members and its correlation with the compliance of antiretroviral therapy

Abstract

Objective To investigate the mental health status of HIV/AIDS patients and their immediate family members, and its relationship with HIV/AIDS patients' compliance to antiretroviral therapy (ART) . Methods There were 92 AIDS/HIV patients and 92 family members enrolled to fill out questionnaires. Symptom checklist-90 (SCL-90) and Morisky Medication Adherence Scale 8-item version (MMAS-8) were adopted to evaluate mental health status and ART compliance, respectively. Pearson's Correlation Coefficient was used to analyze the data. Results The scores of somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobia, paranoia and psychoticism of HIV/AIDS patients were all significantly higher than those of the domestic norm (t=6.64, 4.45, 11.54, 4.88, 18.80, 11.15, 18.49, 7.21 and 11.57, P all 0.05) . Patients' compliance to ART was negatively correlated to their negative mental status such as somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobia, paranoia and psychoticism (r=-0.503, -0.653, -0.752, -0.722, -0.770, -0.654, -0.652, -0.676 and -0.575, P<0.01) . At the same time, patients' compliance to ART was also negatively correlated to family members' negative mental status such as interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility and paranoia (r=-0.423, -0.225, -0.371, -0.380 and -0.388, P<0.01) . Conclusions HIV/AIDS patients' compliance to ART is poor and closely correlated to the mental health of HIV/AIDS patients and their immediate family. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the mental health status of the immediate family members through psychological intervention, so as to improve the compliance of ART in HIV/AIDS patients. Key words: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; Mental health; Antiretroviral therapy compliance