The effects of aging and HIV disease on employment status and functioning.

Participants were excluded for severe psychiatric, medical, or neurological conditions, recent substance use disorders, or low estimated verbal IQ, so the sample may not represent people with those common conditions. Employment and work performance were obtained through a research interview and self-report questionnaire, not employer records or objective job performance measures. Work performance analyses included only 107 employed participants with data, so null findings in that subgroup should be interpreted cautiously. The study measured employment and work performance at the time of assessment, so it cannot show that aging or HIV caused employment changes over time. Older adults may have had different jobs or occupations before HIV infection, sometimes decades earlier, which makes self-reported comparisons to a pre-infection period difficult. The sample came from San Diego community and HIV clinics, so results may not generalize to all older adults with HIV.

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that older age and HIV combine to make employment worse than either factor alone. The age-by-HIV interaction was not significant (p = .18), and older adults with HIV who were employed reported poorer work functioning only compared with younger adults without HIV.