The overarching objectives of the Psychiatry Core are: 1) to continue to define the nature and sources of psychiatric symptoms and syndromes in Human immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infected men and women; 2) to refine our understanding of these psychiatric phenomena by considering the life context (e.g., major life adversity; quality and quantity of social supports) in which they evolve; 3) to link psychiatric phenomena and coping behavior to evolution of neurocognitive disorders associated with HIV infection; and 4) to determine the influence of psychiatric and psychosocial variables on outcome of HIV infection (i.e., medical, social, and life quality outcomes). In addition, Psychiatry Core will provide to other cores and projects, as needed, information on psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses, social supports, and life adversity. Subjects will be 475 HIV+men and women and 125 HIV-controls, as described in the Administrative Core. Individuals with AIDS (CDC A3, B3, C1-3) will be examined every six months because of likelihood of progressive medical and neurobehavioral decline, and all other HIV-positive persons (CDC A1- 2,B1-2) and HIV-negative controls will be evaluated annually. Measures will include the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM III-R (SCID I & II), Family History Interview, Hamilton Rating Scales for Depression and Anxiety, Beck Depression Inventory, Spielberger Srate-Trait Personality and Anger Expression Scale Inventory, Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview, Ways of Coping Revised, and Social Support Questionnaire. A subset of individuals (N=190) will be assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, to validate this epidemiologic measure against SCID research diagnoses rendered by experienced clinicians. The availability of this unique, well characterized sample, relatively free of self-selection bias, should permit the proposed research to make an important contribution to diagnosing and understanding psychiatric symptoms and syndromes in HIV-infected men and women.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 98 publications
