Assessment Of The Bmi Change And Its Contributing Clinical And Immunological Factors Among Patients Receiving Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy (haart) In Selected Public Hospitals Of Addis Ababa

Introduction Providing sufficient food and nutrition to meet people’s basic needs for health, growth and development has been a long standing challenge for African countries. This challenge is further exacerbated by the emergency of HIV/AIDS. Food is often identified as the most immediate and critical need by people with HIV/ AIDS. Objectives The objective of the study was to assess the BMI change and its contributing factors of HIV positive adults after antiretroviral treatment. MethodrnA facility based cross-sectional study was employed to study the change in BMI of HIV infected adults after ART, who were enrolled to HIV chronic care in 11 purposively selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa. A total of 399 clinical records were systematically selected from the roster of respective hospitals and assessed for their nutritional status at initiation, three and six months of ART. The nutritional status was evaluated based on body mass index (BMI). Data were entered in to a computer and analyzed using SPSS. Result The mean age of the study participants was 34 years. After ART, cases with body mass index (BMI) < 18.5 kg/m2 dropped from 30.7% to 15.2%. With ART, decreased frequency of illness, increase CD4 count and improve functional status. In logistic regression, BMI after six months of ART was found to have significant association with baseline low CD4 count, clinical stage IV and opportunistic infection. ConclusionrnPoorer nutritional response were observed in patients who were on ART with clinical stage IV, illnesses and CD4

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