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Abstract The Highly-Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) has revolutionized the management of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in recent years, however with existing drawbacks with respect to drug resistance, adherence, complications, and importantly, mental health problems. Before the age of 14, half of all severe adult psychiatric issues occur, although therapy generally does not begin for another 6–23 years. We conducted a cross sectional study in adolescents in an ART centre affiliated to a tertiary care district level to assess the proportion of stigma, depression, the correlation between stigma and depression and between the CD4 count, duration/ stage of illness to stigma and depression. We administered the HIV Felt Stigma Scale (HFSS) to assess stigma and Centre for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) questionnaire to assess depression. 92.8% felt stigma and 66.3% of the study participants were moderately stigmatised. The proportion of depression was 20.5%, and a statistically significant correlation being observed in between stigma and depression (p value-0.020) and between depression and CD4 count (0.024). A statistically significant association was observed between the total Leukocyte Count and depression (0.01). Therefore, the assessment of youth for stigma leading onto depression allows early intervention in the treatment of depression before symptoms worsen, thereby overcoming a few important barriers to healthy behaviours like adherence to treatment and safer sexual behaviour and aid in reducing the harmful effects of stigma and depression among adolescents with HIV/AIDS. Trial registration number and date of application: not applicable
Azeem et al. (Fri,) studied this question.