Bocar Baya, Cheick Abdel Kader Maiga, Yeya dit Sadio Sarro, Mamadou Cisse, Eleazar Dao, Sidiki Sangare, Sounkalo Dao and Souleymane Diallo
Background: The announcement of HIV-positive status is a critical moment of psycho-social destabilization that can induce changes in the behavior of an individual such a beginning or increased tobacco consumption.
Objective: The objective was to study the relationship between the HIV positive status announcement and smoking behavior among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Bamako after the discovering their status.
Methods: We did a descriptive cross-sectional study over six months from January to June 2012. Data were collected by interviewing HIV infected patients in three health care centers, departments of pulmonary diseases, department of infectious and tropical diseases and the largest HIV clinic in Mali (CESAC of Bamako). All participants have signed an informed consent before the interview. Data were analyzed using Epi-Info version 7.1.5.2 software.
Results: A total of 301 HIV-infected people were included, 24% patients were current smokers 6.3% former smokers and 69.7% non-smokers. Smokers were male in majority with 93.2%. After their HIV infection status announcement, 64.9% have increased their tobacco consumption while 10.8% have decreased their consumption. Majority of patients have a good knowledge of the health risks of smoking. Of those who continue to smoke, 83.8% reported that they tried and fail to stop smoking at least one time. The main reason of their cessation was the effect on their health. And the main reason for the failure was the constant thinking of the disease.
Conclusion: The announcement of the HIV positivity status must be accompanied by psychosocial support helping to overcome the emotion and stress and a smoking cessation program must be added to HIV screening program.
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