Magnitude of under-nutrition and associated factors among HIV positive under-15 age children on follow up at a pediatric ART clinic at referral hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Summary Background: Undernutrition and HIV remain significant public health concerns for infants and children and are the leading causes of death for infants and children. Despite the seriousness of the problem, there is no published research done in the study area. Most of the studies done in Ethiopia either overlooked or little are known about the dietary factors for undernutrition, and most of them are single-centered studies. So, this study aims to fill these gaps. Therefore, the goal of this study was to determine the magnitude and associated factors of undernutrition among HIV-positive under-15 children on follow-up at referral hospitals in Addis Ababa. Objectives: To assess the magnitude of under-nutrition and associated factors among HIV positive under-15 age children on follow-up at a pediatric ART clinic at referral hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 04 July 2022 to 04 August 2022 G.C. Methods: A health institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 04 July 2022 to 04 August 2022 G.C among 459 HIV-positive children below 15 years of age who received highly active antiretroviral therapy in three selected referral hospitals in Addis Ababa. A systematically random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. The collected data were entered into Epi Data 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 26 for analysis, and the anthropometric indices were calculated using WHO Anthro (for 5 year old children) and WHO Anthro-plus (5-15 year old children) software versions 3.2.2. In the multi-variable analysis, variables were considered statistically significant when the p value was less than 0.05 at 95% CIs. Results: A total of 419 study participants were interviewed, of which 109 (26%) were stunted and 83 (19.8%) were wasted. Parental living status, marital status, family size, caretakers‘ educational level, and individual dietary diversity were significantly associated with stunting. Parental living status, ART regimen, eating problems, counseling, and individual dietary diversity were all found to be statistically significant predictors of wasting. Conclusion: This study indicated that there is a high burden of undenutrition. Therefore, dietary counseling, early identification and treatment of children with eating problem, giving close attention to HIV-positive children who are on ART second line regimen and financial support need to be provided to alleviate the problem. Keywords: - under-nutrition, wasting, stunting, antiretroviral therapy.