Food Insecurity and Associated Factors Among HIV Patients in Health Centers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background: Food insecurity, defined as a lack of access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet dietary needs and maintain a healthy and active life. This leads to both increased risk of HIV transmission and more rapid HIV disease progression this result in higher morbidity and mortality, and they will develop resistance to antiretroviral therapy and that, in turn, will hinder the Ethiopian government from achieving the SDG targets set for the year 2030. Objective: To assess the magnitude of food insecurity and associated factors among HIV patients in health centers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2024 Methods : An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 339 HIV patients selected by systematic random sampling from health centers in Addis Ababa hospitals. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data was checked for completeness, clean and enter into Epi-Data version 3.1.and export into SPSS version 25 for analysis. The descriptive statistics result was presented with table and graph. Binary logistic regression was used for selected variables. A variable with p-value (p<0.25) entered in multi variable logistic regression analysis. Then the regression result was presented using AOR with 95% CI and p value less than 0.05 considered as having significance association with food insecurity in the final model. RESULT: A total of 323 participants were participated with the response rate of 92.2 %. The level of food insecurity was 43.9%95%CI(39.3, 48.8).The finding of the study showed that sex(being female)(AOR: 0.059, 95% CI (0.015, 0.235), religion(Muslim and protestant)(AOR: 11.8, 95% CI (3.31, 42.1), occupation(being employed)(AOR:0.069 95%CI (0.016, 0 .299), source of food(from support)(AOR: 0.228 95% CI (0.060,0.865). and ART duration (AOR:4.5695%CI (1.92, 10.83) were factors significantly associated with food security. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: The finding of the study showed that sex, religion, occupation, source of food and ART duration were factors significantly associated with food insecurity. All concerned body are recommended to integrate ART programs with food security intervention accordingly.