AIDS And People With Severe Mental Illness: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals

While HIV spreads among people with severe mental illness for the same reasons it does in the general population, there are specific ways in which mental illness is associated with elevated HIV risk. Every mental health institution or program now has to deal with the consequences of increased HIV rates, but until now there has been no single book that could tell them how to do so. AIDS and People with Severe Mental Illness covers the entire range of information essential for those who deal with these patients: epidemiological, medical, psychological, legal, ethical, and policy issues are all examined by eminent authorities in those areas.

Nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health administrators, forensic specialists, and others involved in the care of people with severe mental illness will find here exactly what they have been looking for: the information essential for dealing with the challenges the AIDS epidemic has set before them.

Francine Cournos, M.D., is professor of clinical psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She runs a program for people with severe mental illness, and her research in the area of HIV infection among this population has been widely published. Nicholas Bakalar is a New York writer and editor.