Burden of chronic conditions among persons with HIV/AIDS and psychiatric comorbidity.

BACKGROUND Improved survivorship among persons living with HIV translates into higher risk of medical comorbidities. OBJECTIVE We assessed the association between intersection of physical (HIV) and mental health (psychiatric) conditions and intermediate outcomes. METHODS Cross-sectional study of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)-Household Component between 1996 and 2016. We created four groups for persons aged ≥18: (1) HIV + psychiatric comorbidity, (2) HIV, (3) psychiatric comorbidity, and (4) no-HIV/no-psychiatric comorbidity. We compared the burden of medical comorbidities (metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, cancers, infectious diseases, pain, and substance use) across groups using chi square tests. We used logistic regression to determine the association between group status and medical comorbidity. RESULTS Of 218,133,630 (weighted) persons aged ≥18, 0.18% were HIV-positive. Forty-three percent of HIV group and 19% of no-HIV group had psychiatric comorbidities. Half of the HIV+ psychiatric disorder group had at least one medical comorbidity. Compared to the no-HIV/no-psychiatric comorbidity group, the HIV + psychiatric comorbidity group had highest odds of medical comorbidity (OR= 3.69, 95% CI = 2.99, 4.52). CONCLUSION Persons presenting with HIV + psychiatric comorbidity had higher odds of medical comorbidities of pain, cancer, cardiovascular disease, substance use, metabolic disorders and infectious diseases, beyond that experienced by persons with HIV infection or psychiatric disorders, independently. Future research will focus on the mediating effects of social determinants and biological factors on outcomes as quality of life, cost and mortality. This will facilitate a shift away from the single-disease framework and compress morbidity of the aging cohort of HIV-infected persons.