Dube Jara
Background: Expanding access to ART is changing the global HIV epidemic in momentous ways. But, one of the greatest psychosocial challenges that parents/ caregivers and health care workers face is the disclosure of HIV-positive status to children living with the virus.
Objective: To assess the magnitude of HIV-positive status disclosure and associated factors among children living with HIV in East Gojjam zone, Northwest of Ethiopia.
Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted to collect data from 300 family/caregivers of 6-15 years old children and have follow-up on pediatric ART care and treatment center in East Gojjam Hospitals. The collected data were entered and cleaned using Epi-data 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 16.0 for analysis. Logistic regression model was used to fit data in order to identify factors associated with HIV positive status disclosure.
Result: Of total, 33.3% of the children living with HIV were disclosed their HIV-positive status. Age of the child, length of stay on ARV drug treatment and responsibility to take drug were significantly associated with disclosure. Those children belong to age group 6-9years were 0.86 times less likely to be disclosed about their HIV status as compared with those children belong to age group 13-15years [(AOR = 0.15; 95% CI = 0.06-0.37)]. Children who were responsible for their ARV drug were 2.68 times more likely to be informed about their HIV status than their counterparts (AOR = 2.68; 95% CI: 1.34-5.37).
Conclusion: The rate of disclosure of HIV positive status to HIV infected children is low. Age, children who are responsible for their ARV drug and who stays for longer duration on ARV drugs were the most important factors. Health care provider emphasis on educating responsibility of children on their ARV drug medication
