Prevalence of Non-HIV comorbidity in HIV Inpatients in the State of New Jersey

This study intends to examine the prevalence of non-HIV comorbidities, and to identify the disparities in the occurrence of non-HIV comorbidities among different demographic groups of HIV patients. Inpatient acute discharges for HIV patients were extracted from NJ hospital discharge data(2005-2009) using Major Diagnostic Category(MDC) 25. The list of non-HIV comorbidities used in this study include: substance abuse; psychiatric disorders; general medical comorbidities (diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hepatitis A/B/C, tuberculosis, and syphilis). Each category of non-HIV comorbidities was identified using ICD-9 diagnosis codes, and the occurrence of these conditions was identified for each race, gender, and age group. There were about 19,000 discharges with a steady decreasing trend(-22%) from 2005-2009. Substance abuse had the highest occurrence among all non-HIV comorbidities (40.3% of all HIV discharges), followed by hepatitis(25.1%), hypertension(24.7%), diabetes(9.4%) and psychiatric disorders(9.0%). Significant racial disparities were found. Blacks had a higher rate of substance abuse(÷²=215.6,p<.0001) and hypertension (÷²=451.9,p<.0001) while whites had a higher rate of psychiatric disorders (÷²=86.4,p<.0001) than other races. However, no significant gender-race interactions were found in any of three conditions above. Significant gender disparities were found with women having higher rates of substance abuse (÷²=70.9,p<.0001) than men in all the races. Age also played a significant role in the occurrence of non-HIV comorbidities. The rates of all the general medical conditions increased with age. Substance abuse was significantly higher among those aged 35-54 than any other age group (÷²=381.8,p<.0001). Psychiatric disorders were pervasive among all age groups with rates ranging from 7.8% (less than 18) to 11.9%(55+older).