Prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus infection among psychiatric patients in Swaziland

Abstract

Background: The HIV epidemic is one of the worst to have ravaged the world. The majority of infected people are in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Swaziland having the highest HIV prevalence rate of 26%. Psychiatric patients have not been spared from this HIV epidemic and yet despite this, no studies on the prevalence of HIV infection among this specific population group in Swaziland have been documented. Thus, it was imperative to determine the prevalence of HIV infection among psychiatric patients in Swaziland, and this study sought to do so. Objective: The study aimed to investigate the prevalence of HIV infection among psychiatric patients in Swaziland. Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional research design was used in the study conducted at the National Psychiatric Referral Hospital in the Manzini Region of Swaziland. The data comprised of 307 hospital records of psychiatric patients who were attended to at the National Psychiatric Referral Hospital. The data was captured on a data collection tool and analysed using IBM SPSS 24. Results: The results of the study showed that HIV prevalence among psychiatric patients in Swaziland is 23%. The findings demonstrated a significant association between HIV infection status and the demographic factors of gender, age, marital status, employment status and length of hospital stay (p<0.05). There was no positive association between psychiatric diagnosis and being HIV positive. However, patients with schizophrenia were many among the HIV negative, which was statistically significant at p<0.001.A significantly higher proportion of females were infected with HIV than males (33% versus 14%, p<0.05). Conclusion: Psychiatric patients are equally affected by the HIV epidemic. In fighting the HIV epidemic, mechanisms and systems to enhance services aimed at preventing, detecting and managing HIV infection among psychiatric patients are of paramount importance.