[An analysis of clinical characteristics of forty-six AIDS phobia patients].

OBJECTIVE

To summarize the clinical characteristics of AIDS phobia patients and establish the preliminary clinical diagnostic criteria.

METHODS

The clinical information of 46 AIDS phobia patients was collected and summarized. General demographic data, clinical manifestations and laboratory results were analyzed.

RESULTS

The clinical characteristics of AIDS phobia patients include: (1) With or without high-risk behavior of HIV-1 infection; (2) Patients repeatedly demanded HIV/AIDS related laboratory tests, suspected or believed in HIV-1 infection with daily life affected; (3) The main complaints were non-specific including influenza-like symptoms (headache, sore throat and so on), fasciculation, formication, arthrodynia, fatigue and complaint of fever with normal body temperature; physical examination did not reveal any positive physical sign except white coated tongue; (4) Symptoms mainly appeared 0-3 months after the high-risk behavior while HIV-1 antibody kept negative; (5) T lymphocyte subsets test was carried out in 23 patients and showed 19 (82.6%) with CD(4)(+) T lymphocyte count > 500/µl, the remaining 4 were 300 - 500/µl, with the lowest count of 307/µl. Few patients had inversed CD(4)(+)/CD(8)(+) ratio but without excessive CD(8)(+)T lymphocyte activation.

CONCLUSIONS

AIDS phobia is a complicated physical and mental disease, whose diagnosis and treatment still need further investigation.