Abundance of psychiatric morbidity in perinatally HIV infected children and adolescents with comparison to their HIV negative sibling

Abstract

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) impairs the physiological, behavioral and social development of the infected-children. With the advent of better antiretroviral-therapies (ARTs), the infected children are surviving well beyond adolescence accompanying with complicated ramification of management with bio-psycho-social factors. Presently, 76 children (53 perinatally HIV+ and 23 of their HIV- sibling) are screened for psychiatric- morbidities with Developmental-Psychopathology-Check-List (DPCL) which is a modified version of widely used protocol ‘Child Behavior Check List (CBCL)’. Positively screened for psychopathology was regarded as psychiatrically morbid. In South-East Asian perspective, this type of investigation is scanty. Here, we investigate and report the psychiatric-morbidity status of vertically HIV infected children with a longitudinal comparison to their HIV- sibling. The present results suggest that 42.1% of the study-population suffers from psychiatric morbidity. Among the HIV+, 45.28% suffer from psychiatric-morbid constituting emotional-disorder, 41.67%, conduct-disorder, 37.50%, somatization 33.33%, learning-disorder, 29.16%, whereas in the HIV- group, 34.79% suffers from psychiatric morbidity mainly with emotional disorder [87.50%]. The age as an independent variable is noticed to be associated significantly (p < 0.001) with psychiatric-morbidity. Other variables amongst sex, CD4+ count, livingstatus of parents, caregiver-status was found to have certain extent of association with psychiatric-status. The present comparison with the more reliable control like HIV- sibling will help for the first time, to characterize better the infection association of psychiatric-morbidity of the HIV+ children. Advances should be espoused for the better survival of HIV infected children with improved ARTs application incorporating with advanced psychiatric-services.