We are excited to share that we have a new funded study in the unit!
“Treatment Development for Smoking Cessation and Engagement in HIV/TB care in South Africa”
People with HIV are 8 times more likely to become depressed than the general population. In a conversation with Bhekisisa Centre, Prof John Joska sheds light on the interaction between HIV, mental health and the brain.
In a recent publication in the Daily Maverick Stefani Du Toit, Stephan Rabie and John Joska as well as our current clinical research interns comment on the potential benefit of behavioural interventions to decrease smoking.
How can we as individuals protect our mental health from South Africa’s socioeconomic chaos? Severe economic decline is often accompanied by adverse mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety and suicide.
The drug company Eli Lilly made world headlines a month ago when it was reported that the drug Donanemab slowed the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by up to 35%. But it is important to interpret these findings cautiously.
We may have been missing the mark for quite some time now… The current approach to diagnosing HIV-related cognitive impairment defines over 20% of healthy controls as having a cognitive impairment. The HIV Mental Health Research Unit initiated a
Dr Stephan Rabie and Prof John Joska comment on Behavioural Medicine’s ability to address comorbid mental and chronic conditions in a recent publication in the South African Medical Journal.
With the month of March behind us, now is a good time to reflect on the Woman in our country. Project Sikunye engages with men to elucidate the drivers of non-adherence, non-disclosure and non-ART initiation. Understanding these factors is cr
Introducing the B.R.A.I.N study. People living with HIV have an increased risk of experiencing neurocognitive impairment in their lifetime. We are developing a rehabilitative tool aimed at improving neurocognitive status in people living with HIV.
Frontier research is generating strong evidence to suggest that many psychedelics have the potential to treat numerous mental health and substance-use disorders. With several of these treatments expected to be approved within the not-too-distant
Beyond the therapy room, artificial intelligence holds the potential to address the mental health gap on a large scale. But does an AI-fuelled mental health revolution fit into our resource-limited setting?
Professor Sam Nightingale with the backing of the charity, Race Against Dementia, proposes new research investigating the prevalence and effect of Alzheimer's in an aging HIV-positive population. This is the first time that PLWH are living into old
Almost half of South African women were economically inactive in 2022. Many women remain in abusive relationships because of financial dependency. Gender-based violence is the price women pay to eat and to have a place to sleep.
Professor John Joska has been a leading figure in the field since he stepped into the newly created role of HIV Psychiatry in 2006.
Click here to read the full profile piece published in the Lancet Psychiatry.
Sam Nightingale, a Neuro-HIV Researcher from the HIV Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, has published a comment in the Lancet about the inadequacy of the current criteria that is used globally to measure HIV cognitive impairemn
Behavioural Medicine is an emerging field in South Africa that addressing multimorbid mental disorders and chronic conditions. The HIV Mental Health Research Unit is launching a MPhil in Behavioural Medicine in 2023 to address this area of researc
In this OP-ED for the Daily Maverick, Dr Stephan Rabie, Prof John Joska, and Morgan Watson comment on the state of suicide research in South Africa, and emphasise the need for research trials testing primary and secondary prevetative suicide inter
The HIV MHU has received a new NIH RO1 grant in collaboration with Dr. Jessica Magidson at the University of Maryland, and colleagues at the University of Miami and Cornell University. The new project utilises a hybrid-care approach to addressing
Dr Lihle Mgweba-Bewana, a sub-specialist clinical fellow in the HIV Mental Health Research Unit, recently contributed to a commentary on the importance of cultural diversity for African neuroethics in Nature Human Behavior. These aut
