Healthcare staff in the out-patient clinic may play a central role in this because they see the patients on a regular basis. Among the 205 responders in this study, 188 patients (92%) replied
that they felt most confident talking selleck products about HIV when talking to staff at the out-patient clinic. Longitudinal research is warranted to further investigate the value of screening for depression among HIV patients to minimize undiagnosed depression and improve clinical outcomes in general for this patient group. Longitudinal studies addressing the role that depression might play in HIV clinical progression and mortality are rare [36–38]. This knowledge will enable healthcare providers to educate patients in self-care to alleviate the symptoms. Our study showed that depression is under-diagnosed among HIV-positive patients and is associated with stress, loneliness, a difficult financial situation, low adherence and unsafe sex. The BDI-II is an adequate tool for detecting HIV patients
with a depression-demanding treatment. Therefore, screening for depression in this patient group should be conducted regularly to provide full evaluation and relevant psychiatric treatment. This is particularly important at time of diagnosis and before initiating highly active antiretroviral therapy. This project was partially this website funded by Skejby Research Fund, Aarhus University Hospital. “
“Pharmacokinetic variability of the nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor efavirenz has been documented, and high variation in trough concentrations or clearance has been found to be a risk for virological failure. Africans population exhibits greater variability in efavirenz concentrations than other ethnic groups, and so a better understanding of the pharmacokinetics of the drug is needed in this population. This study characterized efavirenz pharmacokinetics in HIV-infected
Ugandans. Efavirenz plasma concentrations were obtained for 66 HIV-infected Ugandans initiating efavirenz- based regimens, with blood samples collected at eight time-points over 24 h on day 1 of treatment, and at a further eight time-points on day 14. Noncompartmental analysis was used to describe the pharmacokinetics of efavirenz. The mean steady-state minimum plasma concentration (Cmin) of efavirenz was 2.9 µg/mL, the mean area under the curve (AUC) was 278.5 h µg/mL, and mean efavirenz clearance Rutecarpine was 7.4 L/h. Although overall mean clearance did not change over the 2 weeks, 41.9% of participants showed an average 95.8% increase in clearance. On day 14, the maximum concentration (Cmax) of efavirenz was >4 µg/mL in 96.6% of participants, while Cmin was <1 µg/mL in only 4.5%. Overall, 69% of participants experienced adverse central nervous system (CNS) symptoms attributable to efavirenz during the 2-week period, and 95% of these participants were found to have efavirenz plasma concentrations >4 µg/mL, although only half maintained a high concentration until at least 8 h after dosing.