The Impact of Depression on HAART Effectiveness

Reported by Jules Levin

9th European AIDS Conference (October 2003, Warsaw, Poland) Mostaza and colleagues. Hospital del Bierzo, Ponferrada, León, Spain

The impact of depression in HAART effectiveness has been poorly studied. The study objective was to describe the incidence of depressive symptoms (DS) in HAART treated HIV infected patients and to evaluate the impact of depression on HAART effectiveness.

Patients on HAART were selected for interview. They had asked if they had DS, if they had suffered any symptoms associated to HAART and how many HAART doses they had forgotten the last week.

Ninety eight patients were interviewed. DS were present in 28 patients (28.57%). Seventy seven patients (78.57%) had good adherence to HAART, 20/28 (71.43%) with DS versus 57/ 70 (81.42%) without DS (p=0.205).

Thirty eight patients (38,78%) referred symptoms associated to HAART, 12/28 (42,86%) with DS and 26/70 (37.14%) without DS (p=0.382).

Fifty six patients (57.14%) had viral load below 200 copies/ mL, 11/ 28 (39.29 %) with DS and 45/70 (68.29 %) without DS (p=0,021).

Between patients with and without DS, average CD4 cell count was respectively: 451 cells/ mL and 571 cells/ mL (p=0,115).

The authors concluded that "we found high incidence of DS in HIV infected patients. Depression seems to have a negative impact on HAART effectiveness. We have found a non significant tendency to a worse adherence and lower CD4 cell count in patients with DS. We think it’s very important to identify all HIV infected patients with depression and further studies should examine if depression therapy could contribute to better control of HIV infection".