Psychiatric News (12/1) reports research “highlights the need to educate women with serious mental illness (SMI) about the risks of” HIV/AIDS and HPV. After asking “89 women with SMI receiving outpatient care at a public mental health center in Augusta, Ga., to complete HIV and HPV questionnaires,” researchers then compared “the responses of women with SMI…with those of women in the general population (357 responded to an HIV questionnaire; 413 to an HPV questionnaire).” The study revealed that “women with SMI on average answered 64% of the answers correct on the HIV Knowledge Questionnaire.” What’s more, the women with SMI “knew significantly less about HPV compared with HIV, answering 55% of HPV general knowledge, 51% of HPV vaccination, and 40% of HPV testing questions correctly.” The findings were published online Aug. 1 as a research letter in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.
Related Links:
— “Report Highlights Need to Educate Women With SMI About Risks of HIV, Other STDs, Psychiatric News, December 1, 2020