Abstract:
Introduction: Fertility desire is the interest of people to have or bear children. Previously, many factors affected the fertility desires of people living with HIV/AIDS to decline. But in recent times, the return to normal life due to effective ART has resulted in the rise of their desire for fertility. Since unprotected sexual intercourse is the leading mode of transmission of HIV, the increase in the desire to have children among PLHIV can significantly result in many health concerns but has not been addressed by any service provided to this population.
Objective: To assess fertility desires and the associated factors of adult people living with HIV /AIDS on ART and on follow up care at ART clinics of Jinka town.
Methods: A health facility based cross sectional study design supplemented with a qualitative study was conducted from July 30 up to September 7, 2020. A total of 444 PLHIV participated in the study making response rate 96.1%. Systematic random sampling was deployed to select the respondents of the study. Structured and pretested questionnaires‘ was used to collect information from study participants through face to face interview. Data entry was done by using Epi-data version 4.4.2.1 and analysis was done with SPSS version 25. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. Variables with p-value <0.25 in the bi-variable logistic regression analysis were entered and checked for association in a multivariable logistic regression model. Level of statistical significance was declared at p-value <0.05. The final model was fitted with Hosmer and Lemeshow (p-value ˃ 0. 5).
Result: A total of 444 PLHIV participated in this study and the mean (±SD) age of the participants was 33.47±8.4 years. Majority of the participants being female 245 (55.2%). 260 (58.6%) respondents had fertility desire. Sex of alive children, Disclosure status of participant Partners fertility desire, Discussion about fertility desire with ART service provider and chronic illness were significantly associated factors to the Fertility Desires of Adult PLHIV.
Conclusion: Substantial proportion of PLHIV in public health facilities of Jinka town had fertility desire. Thus, efforts made on the reproductive health of PLHIV should focus on provision of a well-organized counseling and support system on fertility desire and sexuality in general that allows PLHIV to make information based decisions.
