Assessment of Tracing Family Members of HIV Positive People for HIV Testing and Associated Factors among ART Clinic Attendants at Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: When there is a person in the household infected with HIV the family members will be at risk of horizontal and vertical transmission of the virus to partners and children respectively. Therefore, family members of HIV positive individuals should be aware of their status through HIV testing to take prevention measures and if they were already infected should get HIV care and treatment service early before the disease progresses to AIDS case. Research conducted in different countries about tracing family members for HIV test showed high acceptance rate (>90%) with high prevalence and interventional study in 26 health centers in Ethiopia showed success of tracing 59% of family members for HIV test.Objective: The objective of the study is assessing HIV testing status of family members of patients attending ART clinic in Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital, Amhara region, Ethiopia and to identify associated factors for tracing families for HIV testing.Methodology: Institution based cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted at Bahir Dar, Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital from September 12 - October 15, 2013. Data was collected after 10% of the sample pretested and correction made on the structured questionnaire. Systematic random sampling technique was used considering the daily patient flow, duration of the study period and inclusion and exclusion criteria. The collected data was entered into Epi info software and analysis was carried out using SPSS version 16. Logistic Regression was carried out to identify variable which have association.Result: A total of 422 clients were involved to the study whose mean age was 36.0 ±8.5 years and among them 64.6% were females. Participants of the study responded for 1308 of their family members’ status and 971(74.2%) of the family members were tested for HIV. Of which 290 were spouses, 559 were children and 122 were other individuals living with index cases in the same household. Participants living near the hospital traced their family members 3.49 (95% CI 1.296-9.426) times more likely than participants living far away from the health hospital and participants who had discussion about HIV with their families traced 2.81(95% CI 1.035-7.638) times for HIV testing more likely than participants who did not discuss about HIV status and testing.Conclusion and Recommendation: Tracing family members was high among ART clients in the hospital and many children and adults were traced and tested for HIV. However, there were many untested partners, children and other individuals living with index cases and tracing and testing should be strengthened and assessing family members HIV status and advices on prevention measures and treatments should be routinely carried out in order to control HIV transmission and save the lives of people at risk.

Keywords: ART, HIV, Tracing