Neuropsychological functioning as a predictor of employment activity in a longitudinal study of HIV-infected adults contemplating workforce reentry

Abstract

Cognitive deficits are associated with HIV disease, and HIV-related cognitive deficits have been associated with declines in everyday functioning and vocational status. We administered a baseline neuropsychological (NP) test battery designed to assess estimated full-scale IQ, achievement, attention/concentration, executive function, language, mental speed, motor function, nonverbal memory, verbal memory, and visual-spatial function to a sample of 174 disabled, HIV-positive individuals enrolled in a randomized, controlled trial of a vocational-rehabilitation program. We then used these NP scores to predict employment at the end of participants' study participation, using both hierarchical multiple regression and ordinal logistic regression models. The hierarchical multiple regression analyses did not predict participants' employment activities at the end of study participation. In the ordinal logistic regression model, executive functioning weakly predicted employment status at the end of study participation and inspection of the predicted classifications revealed that 63% of the participants were incorrectly classified using this model. These results suggest that although predicting workforce reentry from NP testing may be statistically significant, NP testing may be of limited clinical value for informing the workforce reentry of disabled people with HIV who are interested in returning to work.