ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify the level of depressive symptoms among patients with HIV infection and to examine the reported patterns of depressive symptoms not confounded by the physical manifestations of HIV-infection.

                                                      ABSTRACT

Objective: Research on depression among HIV-positive patients has been limited by the lack of a valid and reliable measure of depression. This project addresses this problem by exploring the internal consistency reliability and the concurrent and discriminant validity of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) using HIV-positive patients in Jamaica.

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

Background: We hypothesized that voluntary counselling and testing during pregnancy are necessary but not sufficient to provide the holistic psychosocial support needed by Jamaican women living with HIV and/or AIDS. Based on this hypothesis, we investigated a range of coping methods and support systems used by HIV-infected women and a group of their HIV-negative counterparts before, during and immediately after their pregnancies.

ABSTRACT

The seroprevalences of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human T lymphotropic virus type-1 (HTLV-1) and syphilis were determined in 129 HIV-1-infected patients using commercially prepared reagents. The seroprevalences were HCV, 0% (0/129); HBV, 37% (48/129); HTLV-1, 5% (6/129) and syphilis, 20% (26/129). Fifteen per cent (19/129) of the patients had active/chronic HBV infection.