AUTHOR=Regassa Tilahun Mekonnen , Gudeta Tesfaye Abera 

TITLE=Levels of undernutrition and associated factors among adults receiving highly active anti-retroviral therapy in health institutions in Bench Maji Zone, Southwest Ethiopia in 2018

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.814494

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2022.814494

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=Objective-To assess magnitude of  under-nutrition and associated factors among Adult Clients attending Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in Health Facilities of Bench Maji Zone, South West Ethiopia,2018.
Methods- Facility based cross sectional study design was employed from May 01 – June 30/2018 on 1007 study subjects and the participants were selected by using consecutive sampling technique. Five health facilities were selected by using simple random sampling technique. Data was entered in to Epi Data Statistical software version 3.1 and analysed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 21.0. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated to under nutrition in adults attending ART. Odds ratios with 95 % confidence intervals were used to examine associations between dependent & independent variables. 
Result: Result: Out of the total 1007 clients, 961 participated in the study. More than half of the study participants 61.2% were female, 57.2% were married and 42.9% were in the 30–39 years age group. In this study, the magnitude of under nutrition among adult clients on antiretroviral therapy was 154 (16%). Age ≥50 [AOR 2.5, 95% CI (1.1–5.6)], being single in marital status [AOR 2.2, 95% CI (1.4–3.7)], developing gastro intestinal symptoms [AOR 2.6, 95% CI (1.5–4.4)] and developing WHO clinical stage III and IV of HIV/AIDS [AOR 2.8, 95% CI (1.3–6.0)] were found to have statistically significant association with under-nutrition.
Conclusion: Significant numbers of people on highly active antiretroviral therapy in the study area were under-nutrition. This implicates the impact of HIV/AIDs and its treatment directly or indirectly on the nutritional status of the patients who need a critical follow-up of the health worker. Age, marital status, developing WHO clinical stage of disease, and development of gastro intestinal symptoms were identified as factors of under-nutrition among adult people on highly active antiretroviral therapy. The health care workers and experts working on the ART clinic should focus on patient counseling about early prevention, detection and treatment of opportunistic infections. Early health- seeking behaviors before the AIDs stage and critical follow- up are the first actions to identify under-nutrition.