Prevalence of infectious diseases and its behavioral influencing factors among homeless psychiatric patients

Objective To explore the prevalence of infectious diseases and the impact of behavioral style on the prevalence among homeless psychiatric patients.Methods General information and medical records of 2 332 homeless psychiatric patients rescued by Nanning Municipal Social Welfare Hospital from 2008 through 2014 were collected and morbidity and epidemiological features of infectious disease among the patients were analyzed.Chi-square goodness of fit test and multivariate analysis were performed in analyses using SPSS 20.0.Results Among all the patients,a total of 361 cases of infectious disease were identified and the overall prevalence rate of infectious disease was 15.5%;the prevalence rates were 10.2%(239 cases),3.3%(77),1.5%(36),and 0.4%(9) for viral hepatitis,syphilis,pulmonary tuberculosis,and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),respectively.Of the infectious disease cases,60.9% (220) were male;37.2% and 30.2% were aged 20-29 and 30-39 years.Significantly higher proportions of males than females were observed among the cases with viral hepatitis (64.9%) and pulmonary tuberculosis (69.4%);whereas an obviously higher proportion of females than males was observed among the AIDS cases (66.7%)(P<0.01 for all).Employment was a protective factor of infectious disease (odds ratioOR=0.639,95% confidence interval95.0%CI:0.456-0.896) and having common psychosis was a risk factor of infectious disease (OR=1.665,95.0%CI:1.223-2.267).Conclusion Homeless psychiatric patients are at high risk of infectious disease because of their wandering behavior and the prevalence of infectious disease is higher among the population than among the general population.The results suggest that homeless psychiatric patients should be covered by health management on infectious disease.