Health Scope. 2015 May; 4(2): e25796. DOI: 10.17795/jhealthscope-25796 Published online 2015 May 2. Research Article Mental Health Status of Patients With HIV/AIDS in the South of Iran Farah Moayedi 1 ; Sedigheh Jashoonia Hormozi 2 ; Iman Tahamtan 3,* 1 Department of Psychiatry, Behavioral and Neurosciences Research Center, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, IR Iran 2 Student Research Committee, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, IR Iran 3 Health Information Mangement Research Center, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, IR Iran *Corresponding author: Iman Tahamtan, Health Information Mangement Research Center, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, IR Iran. Tel/Fax: +98-7613337192, E-mail: Iman.tahamtan@gmail.com Received: December 4, 2014; Revised: February 23, 2015; Accepted: March 7, 2015 Background: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a fatal disease that is caused by Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV). Information about the mental health status of patients with HIV/AIDS and its correlates is critical and provide proper palliative care and other supportive services. Objectives: Considering the high prevalence of mental and psychological disorders among people living with HIV/AIDS, the present study aimed to investigate the mental health status of people with HIV/AIDS in the south of Iran. Patients and Methods: This descriptive-cross sectional study was conducted on 95 HIV-positive patients referred to Bandar Abbas Behavioral Diseases Counseling Center in 2012. Data were collected using a General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). The HIV/AIDS subjects with total scores of ≤ 23 were classified as nonpsychiatric. Data were analyzed using SPSS-16 by applying descriptive statistics and the chi-square test. Results: Results of this study showed that 85.3% of the participants scored above the screening threshold for mental health disorders. There was no significant relationship between mental health disorders and age, gender, marital status, employment status, level of education, drug abuse history, area of living and clinical stages of HIV/AIDS cases. Moreover, 95.1% of participants had anxiety symptoms, 85.2% had depression, 87.7% had social dysfunction, and 80.2% had somatic symptoms. Conclusions: The prevalence of mental disorders among the HIV-positive patients in Bandar Abbas City, Iran, was high. The findings of this study demonstrate the need for more attention to improve mental health status of individuals with HIV/AIDS and further research on the mental health status of HIV-positive patients. Keywords: Mental Health; HIV; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Mental Disorders; Iran Copyright © 2015, Health Promotion Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Background There is enough evidence that people with chronic con- ditions, especially those with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) have higher rates of poor psychological and psychi- atric disorders (1). Poor mental health in individuals with HIV/AIDS has been indicated to be related to many vari- ables including employment status, lack of emotional support, lack of high quality health services, intravenous drug use, lower household income, gender, etc. (2, 3). In Iran, a rapid growth in the number of individuals with HIV/AIDS was seen after the first case of HIV which was reported in 1987 (4), which indicates an important at- tention to Iranian cases with this pandemic disease. It is suggested that by 2014 about 106000 individuals in Iran will be living with HIV infection and there are estimated to be approximately 7000 new cases annually. However, little is known about the mental health status of individ- uals with HIV/AIDS in Iran. Information about the status of mental health and its correlates is critical and provide proper palliative care and other supportive services (1). 2. Objectives As the mental health status of individuals seriously ill with HIV/AIDS might vary among communities (1) and to expand our knowledge about the mental health status of HIV/AIDS patients in the south of Iran, this study was conducted to examine the variables correlated with the mental health disorders of patients with HIV/AIDS in Ban- dar Abbas City, the south of Iran. 3. Patients and Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 95 per- sons living with HIV/AIDS who referred to the counsel- ing Center for behavioral patients in Bandar Abbas City, Iran, in 2012. Individuals with HIV/AIDS with the age of more than 15, who had a positive retrovirus antibody through an Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELI- SA) method, were recruited to participate in the study. Therefore, 123 patients (83 men and 40 women) were identified. However, only 95 of them consented to par- ticipate in the study. We used the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) to