Pharmacotherapy Considerations in Patients with HIV and Psychiatric Disorders: Focus on Antidepressants and Antipsychotics

To review the evidence for the efficacy and safety of pharmacologic agents for the treatment of depressive and psychotic disorders in patients with HIV infection and to provide clinical considerations for the treatment of depression and psychosis in these patients.PubMed was searched for articles published between 1966 and August 1, 2012, using the search terms antiretrovirals, HIV, AIDS, depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, antidepressant, antipsychotic, and individual drug names (fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram, escitalopram, venlafaxine, duloxetine, mirtazapine, bupropion, haloperidol, perphenazine, fluphenazine, aripiprazole, asenapine, clozapine, iloperidone, lurasidone, olanzapine, paliperidone, quetiapine, risperidone, ziprasidone).For the purposes of evaluating efficacy data, we limited our selection to randomized placebo-controlled or active comparator-controlled trials for agents that have been used for depression and psychosis in HIV-infected patients.We found 11 studies for depression treatment and 1 study for psychosis treatment that met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs; especially fluoxetine) and tricyclic antidepressants appear to be effective in treating depressive symptoms in patients with HIV infection without affecting immune status. Testosterone, stimulants, and dehydroepiandrosterone may also be effective in subsyndromal depression; however, studies on these agents in general were limited by small sample size. There are limited data for antipsychotics, with the only controlled study found for haloperidol and chlorpromazine used for AIDS delirium. Drug-drug interactions and potentiation of metabolic syndrome are concerns for the combined use of antidepressants and antipsychotics with antiretrovirals.Larger controlled studies are needed to validate the current findings as well as expand knowledge for non-SSRI antidepressants and second-generation antipsychotics for use in HIV-infected patients.