[Incidence of psychiatric syndromes and the psychosocial functional level of patients with HIV-1 infection].

There are not yet unselected studies on psychopathological syndromes in the course of HIV-infection in German-speaking countries. In a group of 55 patients in different stages of the infection two psychiatric explorations were done within an interval of about one year. The findings were analysed by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). The degree of psychosocial functioning was estimated using the GAF-scale (axis 5 of DSM-III-R). The diagnosis of dementia was based on DSM-III-R-criteria. Most of the patients (72%) showed normal or only slightly remarkable psychopathologic findings at both times. A significant increase in psychopathologic conspicuousness in the course of the disease was only found for the subscore BPRS 2 ("anergia"). Dementia was seen in five patients (9%) and only in the stage of manifest immune deficiency syndrome (WR 6). All-together there was only a slight decrease of psychosocial functioning detectable (median on the GAF-scale 75), which only in dementia showed a significant reduction.