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Met and unmet health, welfare and social needs of people living with HIV social isolation
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- social welfare needs were the greatest unmet need as 62% reported this need unmet: social isolation was the greatest of these that are an unmet need with 20% reporting social isolation & loneliness but 75% reporting this was unmet need, bear in mind this survey was conducted in a broad age range with 40% 45-54, 35% 35-44, 20% 55-64 and only 5% 65+, and 15% 15-34. Depression was also a high unmet need by 60%.
Reported by Jules Levin, NATAP
Presented at BHIVA April 2018 Edinburg conference
M Kall, C Kelly, M Auzenbergs and V Delpech
Public Health England, London, UK
Background: People living with HIV have a diverse range of service needs, related to their HIV, as well as their health, welfare and social care. The extent to which these needs are currently being met is unknown. We present national estimates of the met and unmet service needs of people accessing HIV specialist services in the UK.
Methods: Positive Voices is a cross-sectional, probability survey of people with HIV, conducted between January and September 2017. Using the HIV surveillance database (HARS) as a national sampling frame, a representative sample of people attending 73 HIV clinics in England & Wales was invited to take part, and 4,415 people responded (51% response rate). Participants were
asked about their need for 6 HIV-related, 11 health-related and 12 social and welfare services over the past 12 months, with response options: 'I did not need this', 'I have received this', 'I needed this but could not get it' and 'I needed this but did not try to get it.' Unweighted estimates of met and unmet need are presented.
Results: The greatest area of need was HIV-related services: particularly treatment advice, information on living with HIV and adherence support (61%, 47% and 40% needed the services, respectively); for each >90% had their needs met. A third (32%) needed peer support/social contact with people with HIV, and just over half (56%) received this.
Long -term condition management support (42% needed the service), help to manage stress (33%), counseling (31%), weight management (29%) and sexual advice (27%) were the most needed health-related services: around half of these needs had been met (67%, 45%, 59%, 46% and 59% respectively).
Generally the greatest area of unmet need was for social and welfare services, where in two-thirds (62%) of cases of need, services were either unavailable or not sought.
Housing support (22%), help dealing with loneliness and isolation (20%) and help claiming
benefits (19%) were each needed by a fifth of respondents, of which housing
support and help claiming benefits was received by half, but only 24% received help with loneliness and isolation.
Conclusion: This comprehensive needs assessment provides important data for HIV care providers and support organisations to identify gaps in service provision. Provision of HIV-related services is overall good, but the need for social and welfare services is largely unmet. Further breakdowns by risk-group and geography are needed to tailor local response.
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