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Impulsivity and linkage to HIV Care among People living with HIV in St. Petersburg, Russia

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Abstract

This study evaluated the association between impulsivity and linkage to HIV care among Russians living with HIV recruited from an inpatient narcology hospital. Linking Infectious and Narcology Care (LINC) study participants who completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) were included in these analyses. The primary independent variable was impulsivity score which was categorized as high impulsivity (BIS score > 71) vs. low impulsivity (BIS score < = 71). The primary outcome, linkage to care post recruitment, was defined as one or more HIV medical care visits at 12-month follow-up. Multiple logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between high impulsivity and linkage to HIV care controlling for potential confounders. Participants (N = 227) were adults with a mean age of 34 years (SD = 5), and the majority were male (74%). We did not detect a significant association between impulsivity and linkage to HIV care after adjusting for respondents’ age, gender, CD4 cell count, and depression score. We also found that substance use and hazardous drinking did not appear to confound the relationship. Although our study was unable to detect an association between impulsivity and linkage to HIV care, it may provide direction for future research exploring the associations between impulsivity and HIV care.

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Data Availability

Data collected for the study are available to interested investigators in the URBAN ARCH Repository: www.urbanarch.org.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under grant numbers K23DA039769 and R01DA032082 and by the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research (P30AI042853).

Funding

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under grant numbers K23DA039769 and R01DA032082 and by the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research (P30AI042853).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Global Public Health, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, 92093, San Diego, CA, USA

    Arnab K. Dey & Anita Raj

  2. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Nicole Ennis

  3. Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Debbie M. Cheng, Emily Quinn, Tibor Palfai & Jeffrey H. Samet

  4. First St. Petersburg Pavlov State Medical University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Blokhina & Evgeny Krupitsky

  5. Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

    Sally Bendiks & Jeffrey H. Samet

  6. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Eugene M. Dunne

  7. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Robert L Cook

  8. V.M. Bekhterev National Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Neurology, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Evgeny Krupitsky

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  1. Arnab K. Dey
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Contributions

NE, DMC, EK and JHS contributed to the conceptualization and design of this study. DMC and EQ performed statistical analyses and all co-authors contributed to interpretation of results. AKD, NE, SB and JHS drafted the manuscript, and all co-authors critically reviewed the manuscript. JHS obtained funding for the study and EB, SB and EK contributed to administrative, technical, and material support for the study. AR, SB, EK and JHS provided supervisory support to the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arnab K. Dey.

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Conflicts of interest / competing interests

DMC serves on Data Safety and Monitoring Boards for Janssen. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Dey, A.K., Ennis, N., Cheng, D.M. et al. Impulsivity and linkage to HIV Care among People living with HIV in St. Petersburg, Russia. AIDS Behav 26, 4126–4134 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03738-x

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