The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #45658

Kathryn Whetten-Goldstein, PhD, MPH¹, Tomas Soto, PhD², Sonia Napravnik, MPH³, and Rachel Stevens, MPH¹. (1) Center for Health Policy, Law and Management, Duke University, Box 90253, 125 Old Chemistry Building, Durham, NC 27708, (919) 684-8012, kwg@hpolicy.duke.edu, (2) Director, Behavioral Sciences Department, The CORE Center, 2020 W. Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60612, (3) Infectious Dieseases Clinic, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 101 Manning Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514

There is growing recognition that a significant proportion of those with HIV also have mental health and substance abuse diagnoses. Few studies, however, provide prevalence rates for such co-morbidities, particularly in rural areas. Two infectious diseases clinics in a rural Southern state and one clinic in a Northern urban state screened approximately 2,000 HIV-positive people with a mental health and substance abuse screening tool with. The tool was designed to be sensitive so as to screen persons into programs for the triply diagnosed. Those triply diagnosed who started treatment were administered the SCID, a gold-standard instrument that provides DSM IV diagnoses. Concordance measures between the quick screener and diagnoses will be provided along with implications for prevalence rates. Preliminary results indicate that approximately 65-70 percent of HIV-infected persons in the clinics were dually diagnosed and approximately one quarter were triply diagnosed. We will provide contextual information from our studies to explain why rural areas are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the dually and triply diagnosed.

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