Gender characteristics of HIV patients in the region with a high prevalence of HIV infection

Abstract

HIV infection has been a global medical and social problem for all mankind for several decades. In recent years, significant changes have occurred in the structure of patients in Russia— the incidence decreases slightly, the effectiveness of treatment increases, but at the same time, with an increase in the length of the disease, the number of patients with comorbid conditions increases.

The aim of the study was to present the gender characteristics of HIV patients in a region with a high prevalence of HIV infection.

Materials and methods. 396 patients registered at the dispensary at the Center for the prevention and control of AIDS for at least a year were examined. Statistical processing was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 program.

Results and discussion. Males made up the majority — 66.41%. More than half of the patients were aged 36–45 years (53.79%). The majority of the surveyed were unemployed — 61.87% (n=245). Among 396 patients with HIV infection, 12.63% (n=50) were users of injectable narcotic drugs at the time of the examination. 44.95% (n=178) had previously accepted IDUs. In men, the parenteral route of HIV transmission is 4.8 times more frequent than the sexual one (²=197.37, p=0.0000), in women the sexual one prevails (²=9.06; p=0.026). Most have stage 4A HIV, and adherence to treatment is twice as high in women. The opportunistic infections characteristic of HIV did not differ between men and women. The majority of patients (92.42%; n=366/396) had several diseases associated with HIV infection.

Conclusion. The disease still affects young people and mainly men (p=0.01) — injecting drug users, unemployed people who were previously in prison. It is necessary to optimize measures not only for the preventive treatment of tuberculosis, but also to reduce addictions, primarily narcotic and tobacco, treatment of opportunistic infections and increase adherence to ART.