Background: Little is known about specific treatment needs of mentally ill clients abusing substances and infected by HIV. The major gap concerns residential programmes.
Aims: To explore differences in outcomes between seropositive and seronegative dually diagnosed opiate dependent clients who participated in a residential therapy programme.
Methods: Data were gathered on 154 clients treated in a therapeutic community in Milan between October 1999 and September 2004. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were used to study the association between HIV serostatus and outcome.
Results: At 12-month followup, seropositive clients were more likely to relapse.
Conclusions: The impact of HIV seropositivity on behavioural outcomes should be taken into consideration when planning residential programmes for the HIV (+) dually diagnosed population. Further research could test the need of incorporating dedicated treatments into existing programmes.