A Biopsychosocial Approach to HIV/AIDS Education for Psychiatry Residents

AIDS psychiatry has been described as a paradigm for teaching psychosomatic medicine with a biopsychosocial approach (1–7). The need for HIV/AIDS education has been emphasized in descriptions, studies, and surveys of psychiatric residency training programs (3–6). HIV/AIDS psychiatry provides opportunities for psychiatry residents to learn about preventing illness and managing chronic and acute illness in persons with psychiatric disorders. It magnifies the significance of assessing acute mental status changes in medically ill persons, discussing sexual and drug-use behaviors, and integrating a cognitive assessment into every psychiatric consultation. The complexities of AIDS and its treatments also magnify the complicated interactions of medications as influenced by mechanisms of drug metabolism and the necessity for building rapport to facilitate the recognition and management of psychiatric symptoms and disorders that affect adherence to medication and participation in treatment. HIV/AIDS complexities also substantiate the value of integrating palliative approaches to care throughout the course of illness, not only at the end of life. AIDS is similar to most other complex and severe medical illnesses, such as cancer, cardiovascular illnesses diabetes mellitus, emphysema, and systemic lupus erythematosis. Severe, complex illnesses have a profound impact on the lives of individuals, their loved ones, and families. Nonadherence tomedical care heightens suffering,morbidity, andmortality. Most persons with severe, complex illnesses can benefit from a comprehensive, compassionate, biopsychosocial approach to care. Integrating medical and psychiatric care for persons with HIV and AIDS can improve adherence, ameliorate suffering, and decrease morbidity and mortality. AIDS differs from many other complex and severe illnesses because it leads to other multi-morbid and debilitating medical illnesses, such as endocrine, hematologic, renal, pulmonary, neoplastic, and cardiac illness, as well as concomitant illnesses, such as hepatitis C (HCV). AIDS is also associated with specific psychiatric disorders, such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychosis, and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). AIDS differs from many complex and severe illnesses in two ways that are very relevant to HIV/AIDS education. The first is that it is an unusual illness because it is almost entirely preventable, and adherence to risk-reduction behaviors has public health implications. The second is that HIV and AIDS are associated with sex, drug use, and AIDS-associated stigma and discrimination, or AIDSism (8). Whereas nonadherence to prevention and treatment of all illnesses has tragic consequences to patients, families, and loved ones, nonadherence to prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS also results in HIV transmission and has significant public health implications. The most significant challenges to AIDS education in psychiatric residency training include illness-related and training-related factors. Illness-related challenges include an illness with rapidlychanging prevalence, incidence, and treatments, as well as stigma and AIDSism. Training-related factors include pressures of time and productivity, as well as complacency and denial regarding HIV and AIDS. During 4 years of training, psychiatry residents rotate through the inpatient and outpatient units of psychiatry and general care, the emergency room, and intensive care units. Each of these settings provides an opportunity for HIV training. In this article, we document the relevance of AIDS education for psychiatry residents and describe an HIV and AIDS curriculum Received February 11, 2012; accepted April 19, 2012. From the Dept. of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical School, New York, NY, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Send correspondence to Mary Ann Cohen, M.D., e-mail: macohen@nyc.rr.com Copyright © 2012 Academic Psychiatry