[Medical and social factors in the orientation of patients with AIDS after discharge]

Abstract

The objectives of this cohort survey performed in acute care patients were to identify and to describe HIV patients needing long-term care with or without daily assistance (home care of health care institutions). This exhaustive sample was recruited from among the hospitalized AIDS patients of fifteen departments of Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris; 24% of them required post-discharge medical care (home care or health care institutions). The effects of different factors were assessed to explain the choice of home care or various health care institutions: medical reasons, type of care required, functional disability, and socio-economic conditions. Home care patients had complex care needs, parenteral treatments mainly related to Cytomegaloviral retinitis, and poor functional status. They had a favourable socio-economic environment and help with household activities. Two groups of patients were sent to health care institutions. The first, comprised patients in very poor functional or/and mental conditions, especially in the terminal stage of central nervous system illness. The second, included patients with acceptable functional status, multiple pathologies, and poor socio-economic conditions. After adjustment, significant factors influencing the possibility of home care were: a previous successful home care experience and a high educational level. The factors limiting the possibility of home care were important neurologic symptoms, drug use, living alone and poor lodgings. The results of this study suggest that it would be necessary to increase the availability of long term care facilities for persons with AIDS and develop earlier medico-social follow-up, in order to anticipate the problems related to bad socio-economic conditions.