Prevalence and correlates of psychosocial conditions among people living with HIV in southern India

ABSTRACT

Psychosocial conditions such as depression, intimate partner violence (IPV), and history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have been associated with poor HIV-related outcomes. In India, which has the third largest HIV epidemic in the world, little is understood about the impact of psychosocial conditions on people living with HIV (PLHIV). We aimed to understand the prevalence and correlates of psychosocial conditions among PLHIV entering into HIV care at the Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education in Chennai, India. Thirteen questions were added to the standard voluntary counseling and testing questionnaire, including the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (a depression scale) and questions assessing for CSA and IPV. We fitted logistic regression models, stratified by gender, with psychosocial condition as the outcome of interest and substance use variables and socio-demographic variables as the correlates of interest. Three hundred and eighty-three persons were enrolled into the study; of these, 253 (66%) tested positive for HIV, including 149 men and 104 women, and were included in the models. More than one-quarter (28%) of the men and 19% of the women reported at least one psychosocial condition (probable depression, CSA, or IPV). In adjusted analysis, current alcohol use was associated with greater than two times higher odds of a psychosocial condition (Adjusted Odds Ratio = 2.24, 95% CI, 1.04–4.85) among men. In conclusion, we estimated the prevalence of probable depression, CSA, and IPV among PLHIV presenting for HIV care in southern India and found that, among male PLHIV, alcohol use was associated with a markedly higher odds of reporting a psychosocial condition. Further study is needed to characterize alcohol use among male PLHIV and the possible deleterious impact of psychosocial conditions and alcohol use on HIV-related outcomes in India.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosocial conditions
• depression
• violence
• alcohol
• India

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many staff members of the Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education who participated in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Harvard Catalyst | The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center (National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health Award KL2 TR001100, an appointed KL2/Catalyst Medical Research Investigator Training award) (Chan), National Institutes of Health P30AI06354 (Mayer), and unrestricted research grants from Merck, Gilead, and Bristol Meyers Squibb (Mayer).