HIV prevalence among men and women admitted to a South African public psychiatric hospital.

In settings with low seroprevalence, people with severe mental illness have a higher prevalence of HIV infection compared to the general population. In the high-prevalence countries of southern Africa, where the pandemic taxes resources for HIV prevention, care, and treatment, the needs of people with mental illness can be easily overlooked if they are not identified as vulnerable to infection. Yet, few African studies have investigated HIV seroprevalence in psychiatric settings.

Training South African mental health care providers to talk about sex in the era of AIDS.

Objective: Mental health care providers in South Africa often lack the skills to conduct effective prevention activities in psychiatric settings. This article describes the development and evaluation of an HIV education program for mental health care providers at three psychiatric institutions in South Africa.

Methods: The research team worked with a core group of 16 mental health care providers to assess HIV training needs and to develop a training intervention focused on identified issues.