Expanded care for enhanced living: Baseline characteristics of HIV/AIDS patients enrolled in the ExCEL project

Background: Researchers have described a wide range of psychological and psychosocial sequelae associated with HIV/AIDS. Psychological complications include distress, anger, guilt, bereavement, and the full spectrum of psychiatric disorders during the course of living with HIV/AIDS. Project EXCEL is a service delivery and evaluation study funded by SAMHSA. El Rio Santa Cruz Neighborhood Health Center's Special Immunology Associates is delivering and evaluating a culturally competent mental health services for HIV infected persons integrated within a primary medical care setting. The objective of the study is to improve the mental health status of HIV infected persons resulting in improved health outcomes.

Methods: The study is a quasi-experimental, longitudinal, repeated measures design. Patients receiving mental health services (n=160) are enrolled into the study and a comprehensive bio-psychosocial assessment, Global Appraisal of Individual Need (GAIN) is completed at study intake and every 90 days for 12 months. Service utilization is captured electronically via the clinic's billing software.

Results: Baseline characteristics of patients are presented including demographics, background, substance use, physical health, risk behaviors, mental health, environment, legal situation, vocational situation and patterns of service utilization (both medical and behavioral health).

Conclusions: Patients with HIV/AIDS can present for behavioral health services within a primary care setting with many co-occurring disorders and under different circumstances than patients in other settings. Understanding the baseline characteristics of the study sample benefits behavioral health professionals by informing them of potential differences in patient populations they may encounter when working with HIV/AIDS patients in need of behavioral health services.