Abstract:
Background: About 3.2 million children aged under 15 years were living with HIV/AIDS in
2014. Approximately 70% are living in Africa where food insecurity and undernutrition are
endemic. Eventhough undernutrition makes it difficult to combat HIV/AIDS there is paucity
of information on magnitude of undernutrition and associated factors among sero-positve
children in low-income countries like Ethiopia.
Objective:This study was aimed to assess magnitude of undernutrition and associated
factors among pediatric age (5-15 years) living with HIV/AIDS in Harari Town and Dire
Dawa City Administration Public Hospitals, Eastern Ethiopia, February 01 – 30, 2017.
Method: Institutional based quantitative cross sectional study design was used to conduct at
Harar and Dire Dawa Public Hospitals. Interviewer administered questionarries and patient
card review was employed to collect data from 414 randomly selected study units. Data was
entered on to Epidata version 3.3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for analysis. The World
Health Organization Anthros plus 2010 software was used to calculate the anthropometric
indices. A descriptive statisitical test was used to analyse univariate data and, Bivariate and
Mutivarable analyisis was done to identify independent factors associated undernutrition.
Level of statistical significance was declearedat P-value less than 0.05 at 95% CI.
Result: The prevalence of thinness (BMI for age<-2SD) and stunting (HAZ<-2SD) was found
to be 11.6%; 95% CI (8.4%, 14.6%) & 30.9%; 95% CI (26.0%, 36.0%) respectively. Lack of
dietary counseling [(AOR=3.01 95% (CI: 5.863, 7.413)], Family monthly income (≤500ETB)
[(AOR 4.73=95% CI(3.530,10.599)], Household food insecurity [AOR=15.764, 95% (CI:5.17,
46.615)], having fair adehrence to antiretroviral drug [AOR=4.077, 95% (CI:2.116, 12.4)] ,
and low dietary diversty scale [AOR=8.549, 95 %(CI: 2.37,9.44)] were significantly associted
with thinness. On the otherhand, rural residence [AOR=3.999, 95% (CI:2.228, 7.179)], family
monthly income of ≤500ETB [AOR=5.79,95% (CI:2.891,11.595)], being anemic
[AOR=3.150,95%(CI:2.135,4.927)] and the presense of diarrhea [AOR=6.209,95%
(CI:3.391,9.243)] were significantly associted with stunting.
Conclusion and recomdation: The magnitude of undernutrtion (thinness and stunting) was
high in the study area. Thus, collaborative measure should be undertaken to improve the
nutritional status of sero-positive children during HIV/AIDS treatment.
