The effect of mental health screening and referral on symptoms of depression among HIV positive outpatients in Vietnam: Findings from a three-month follow up study

ABSTRACT

This study investigated whether screening for symptoms of mental disorders and referral to mental health services was associated with decreased depression symptoms among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in Vietnam. Four hundred PLHIV (63.5% male, mean age 34.8 (SD = 6.8) years) at two outpatient clinics in Ho Chi Minh City were interviewed by psychiatrists and also completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression scale (CES-D). One hundred and seventy-four (43.5%) were identified with symptoms of a range of mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, alcohol use disorder, substance use disorder and HIV associated dementia and were referred to mental health services. Of the 174 PLHIV referred, 162 (93%) returned and completed the CES-D three months later and 125 of these 162 (77%) had attended a mental health service and undertaken treatment. A significant improvement was found in the mean CES-D scores of the 125 attenders from baseline (M = 19.0, SD = 7.5) to month three (M = 11.7, SD = 7.9, p < 0.001). PLHIV who had attended a mental health service and undertaken treatment demonstrated a greater reduction of mean scores on the CES-D compared to PLHIV who had either received a referral but not attended a mental health service to undertake treatment, or not been referred initially.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• referral
• HIV/AIDS
• outpatient
• Vietnam

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the people living with HIV who participated in this study, as well as the individuals and institutions that made this research possible: Dr Tran Thinh, Dr Nguyen Hoang Tam, Dr Van Hung from Ho Chi Minh city Provincial AIDS Committee; Dr Bui Thi Thu Phuong and Dr Pham Thanh Hieu from HIV outpatient clinics; Associate Professor Do Van Dung, Mr Tran Nhat Quang, Mr Hua Thanh Liem, Ms Van Thi Thuy Duong, Ms Kim Xuan Loan from Ho Chi Minh city University of Medicine and Pharmacy and Dr John Nguyen, Dr Jeffrey Mendel from University of California at San Francisco. This work was supported by The Representative Office of Abbott Laboratories S.A. in Vietnam in collaboration with Ho Chi Minh city University of Medicine and Pharmacy in HAND AWARENESS program. No Abbott products were used or recommended to be used during the study and no trademark of Abbott appeared in the study. The travel for field site work during this study was covered by the Australia Award Scholarship. Protocol development and manuscript writing was supported by CDC-PEPFAR Vietnam, the University of California, San Francisco’s International Traineeships in AIDS Prevention Studies (ITAPS), U.S. NIMH, R25MH064712 and the Starr Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Truc Thanh Thai http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2512-8281