Cocaine Use and Sexual Risk Among Individuals With Severe Mental Illness

Abstract

Further research that utilizes better defined and operationalized constructs to investigate relationships among stimulant use, severe mental illness, and sexual risk, particularly condom use, is warranted and is necessary to advance the field.

Effects of syndemic psychiatric diagnoses on health indicators in men who have sex with men.

“…Additionally, in primary care settings, psychiatric comorbidities such as depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety disorders have been additively negatively associated with health indicators including health-related quality of life, functioning, and more sick days used (Rapaport, Clary, Fayyad, & Endicott, 2005;Stein et al, 2005) and specifically generalized anxiety disorder has been associated with ER visits (Buccelletti et al, 2013;Demiryoguran et al, 2006). Further, co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses have been associated with higher rates of sexual risk behavior (Bishop, Maisto, & Spinola, 2016), ER visits (Minassian, Vilke, & Wilson, 2013), and sexually transmitted diseases (Meade, 2006), consistent with syndemic theory. To date, we are not aware of any syndemic investigations that have used clinically evaluated psychiatric diagnoses in populations at-risk for HIV.…”