Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T07:00:34.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychiatric response to the AIDS epidemic in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

James Satriano*
Affiliation:
Columbia University, email satrian@pi.cpmc.columbia.edu
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the early 1980s, when the first cases of AIDS were being reported in the gay population and among intravenous drug users, epidemiological research indicated that the disease was both blood-borne and sexually transmitted. Mental health care workers had little concern about infection among people with serious and persistent mental illness, because this population was felt to be too disabled to engage in the sexual or needle-sharing behaviours that put one at risk. Yet the first case of AIDS in a US state psychiatric facility was diagnosed in 1983, when a woman in her mid-20s, who had been hospitalised for several months, developed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (Cournos et al, 1989). This case was quite shocking to the treatment team, for two reasons: first, AIDS had unexpectedly entered the psychiatric population; and second, the person infected was a woman, when the disease was being reported almost exclusively in men in the United States.

Type
Special Paper
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2004

References

Cournos, F. & McKinnon, K. (1997) HIV seroprevalence among people with severe mental illness in the United States: a critical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 17, 259269.Google Scholar
Cournos, F., Empfield, M., Horwath, E., et al (1989) The management of HIV infection in a state psychiatric hospital. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 40, 153157.Google Scholar
Cournos, F., Empfield, M., Horwath, E., et al (1991) HIV seroprevalence among psychiatric patients admitted to two psychiatric hospitals. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 12251230.Google Scholar
Empfield, M., Cournos, F., Meyer, I., et al (1993) HIV seroprevalence among homeless patients admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 4752.Google Scholar
Lee, H., Travin, S. & Bluestone, H. (1992) HIV-1 in inpatients. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 43, 181182.Google Scholar
McDaniel, J., Chung, J., Brown, L., et al (2000) American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Patients with HIV/AIDS. Available at the website http://www.psych.org/clin_res/hivaids32001.cfm. Last accessed 1 August 2002.Google Scholar
McKinnon, K., Cournos, F., Herman, R., et al (1999) AIDS related services and training in outpatient mental health care agencies in New York. Psychiatric Services, 50, 12251228.Google Scholar
Mental Health, Drug Use and HIV Medicaid Data Workgroup (1999) Report. New York: New York State Department of Health, AIDS Institute.Google Scholar
Meyer, I., Cournos, F., Empfield, M., et al (1993) HIV seroprevalence and clinical characteristics of the mentally ill homeless. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 2, 103116.Google Scholar
Sacks, M., Dermatis, H., Looser-Ott, S., et al (1992) Seroprevalence of HIV and risk factors for AIDS in psychiatric inpatients. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 43, 736737.Google Scholar
Satriano, J., Rothschild, R., Steiner, J., et al (1999) HIV service provision and training needs in outpatient mental health settings. Psychiatric Quarterly, 70, 6374.Google Scholar
Schwartz-Watts, D., Montgomery, L. & Morgan, D. (1995) Seroprevalence of human immunodeficiency virus among inpatient pretrial detainees. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 23, 285288.Google Scholar
Silberstein, C., Galanter, M., Marmor, M., et al (1994) HIV-1 among inner city dually diagnosed inpatients. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 20, 101131.Google Scholar
Stewart, D., Zuckerman, C. & Ingle, J. (1994) HIV seroprevalence in a chronically mentally ill population. Journal of the National Medical Association, 86, 519523.Google Scholar
Susser, E., Valencia, E. & Conover, S. (1993) Prevalence of HIV infection among psychiatric patients in a New York City men's shelter. American Journal of Public Health, 83, 568570.Google Scholar
Volavka, J., Convit, A., Czobor, P., et al (1991) HIV seroprevalence and risk behaviors in psychiatric inpatients. Psychiatry Research, 39, 109114.Google Scholar
Walkup, J., Crystal, S. & Sambamoorthi, U. (1999) Schizophrenia and major affective disorder among Medicaid recipients with HIV/AIDS in New Jersey. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 11011103.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.