Psychiatric symptoms and HIV Patients with HIV-rèlated psychiatric symptoms in a psychiatric outpatient clinic at a department of infectious diseases in Stockholm, 1986–1990

Two hundred and fifty-nine HIV-1-infected patients were admitted to a psychiatric outpatient clinic at a hospital for infectious diseases in Stockholm in 1986-1990. The mean age of the patients was 35 years, and 84% were men. A large percentage of the patients were immigrants: 15% Finnish and 20% immigrants from other countries. Fifty-five per cent were homo- or bi-sexual men. Five per cent of the patients were heterosexually infected women who had serious psychiatric symptoms. HIV-infected patients with advanced immune deficiency often have oral candidiasis that can progress to oesophageal candidiasis, a servere symptom. Drugs that do not give anticholinergic effects like dryness in the mouth are recommended -for example, MAO inhibitors as antidepressants, remoxipride as an antipsycotic drug, and benzodiazepines as tranquillizers. HIV-infected patients with central nervous system involvement are more sensitive than other patients to the extrapyramidal reactions associated with neuroleptics. High doses of...