A new UCT-led study warns that people living with HIV face an elevated risk of suicide and calls for urgent integration of mental health support into routine HIV care in South Africa. A new study by researchers at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Linköping University in Sweden has found that people living with HIV face a heightened risk of suicide, underscoring the urgent need to integrate mental health services into routine HIV care. The research, published in the AIDS Care journal, highlights how stigma, fear of disclosure, mental health challenges and gaps in primary healthcare services combine to increase vulnerability among people living with HIV.
The study explored healthcare workers’ perspectives on suicide risk factors, barriers to care and prevention needs within primary healthcare settings. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 13 healthcare workers from three primary healthcare clinics in Khayelitsha. Associate Professor Stephan Rabie, a chief research officer in UCT’s Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health and the study’s principal investigator, said suicide disproportionately affects people living with HIV due to a complex interplay of factors.
“There isn’t one specific causal pathway that can explain why people with HIV are particularly vulnerable to die by suicide,” Rabie said. “Rather, people with HIV are confronted by a combination of situational stressors that compromise their mental health and increase their risk for suicide.” He added that the elevated risk of mental illness and suicide has serious implications across the HIV care continuum, including delayed treatment initiation, poor engagement in care and reduced life expectancy.
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