Predictors of neuropsychological performance in HIV positive women

This study examines predictors of neuropsychological (NP) performance in a community sample of 237 HIV seropositive and seronegative women. Consistent with literature describing the NP sequelae of HIV infection in men, we exp ected that HIV status would predict poorer NP performance on tests assessin g verbal memory, psychomotor speed and motor speed. Multiple regression ana lyses testing the association between HIV serostatus and NP performance and controlling for predictors including age, ethnicity, education, psychologi cal distress, and drug and alcohol use indicated that HIV serostatus was as sociated with slowed psychomotor speed. Specifically, AIDS diagnosis and HI V seropositivity predicted poorer performance on tests of psychomotor speed relative to HIV seronegatives. Contrary to expectations, no relationship b etween HIV serostatus and either motor speed or verbal memory performance e merged. Education, ethnicity, depressive distress, recent exposure to drugs as indexed by toxicology, and alcohol use were also associated with NP per formance. Given that the HIV seropositive and seronegative samples differed on a number of demographic and drug use variables, a second series of anal yses examining a subset of participants (matched on all key demographic fac tors) and with no illicit drug use during the past year was also conducted. Results of these analyses were similar to those obtained for the full samp le, with AIDS diagnosis and HIV seropositivity predicting psychomotor slowi ng. To date, little work describing the NP sequelae of HIV infection in wom en has been conducted. This study provides one of the first descriptions of the NP effects of HIV/AIDS in a largely non-injection drug using community sample of women.