Survey Questions • Demographics • Results
One of the primary goals of the HIV/AIDS Psychiatry SIG is to establish consensus guidelines on the current practice of HIV psychiatry. Toward this end, several SIG members* created a web-based HIV Psychiatry Treatment Consensus Survey that was distributed, in Spring 2008, to all members of the HIV/AIDS Psychiatry SIG via Zoomerang™. The survey questions (PDF) were chosen to address common areas of concern, specifically the pharmacological treatment of depression, psychosis, anxiety, mania, delirium, and neuropsychiatric problems associated with dementia, as well as the relative value of psychotherapeutic modalities. We provided different treatment scenarios within the survey to develop as much accuracy as possible.
We make available the results of our HIV Psychiatry Treatment Consensus Survey as a first step of establishing an evidence base for the psychiatric treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS. These results were also published in the Nov-Dec 2010 issue of Psychosomatics, Psychiatric treatment of persons with HIV/AIDS: an HIV-psychiatry consensus survey of current practices.
* Those members were: Oliver Freudenreich, MD, Harold W. Goforth, MD, Kelly L. Cozza, MD, and Mary Ann Cohen, MD. We thank Grace Bachmann for putting this survey on the web, and we are indebted to Matthew J. Mimiaga, ScD, MPH and Steven A. Safren, PhD, APBB for their statistical help. We also thank the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine officers, executive Council, Executive Director Norman Wallis, PhD, and Academy Coordinator Kristen Flemming for their support of the OAP and this work.