Prevalence of Anxiety and Associated Factors among People Living with HIV/AIDS at Debretabor General Hospital Anti Retro Viral Clinic Debretabor, Amhara, Ethiopia, 2014

Introduction: Anxiety is one of the co-morbidities that are often overlooked in treating patients for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS).Anxiety is higher among HIV/AIDS than the general population. Anxiety among those that have recently been diagnosed with, HIV has been shown to be more prevalent among patients with stress or excess social stigma related to their diagnosis. Specific prevalence of Anxiety is difficult to identify as a result of the wide variations across the globe, ranging from 7% to 82.3 OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of anxiety and associated factors among PLWHA at Debretabor general hospital ART clinic Debretabor,South Gondar, Amhara, Ethiopia, 2014. METHOD: Institute based cross -sectional study was conducted from April 28 to May 28, 2014 at Debretabor general hospital among PLWHA. Systematic random sampling method was used; logistic regression was performed to assess the association between binary outcomes and Different explanatory variables and the strength of association was interpreted using odds ratio and confidence interval, P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant in this study. Result: A total of 436 PLWH patients were included in this cross-sectional study. Out of which, 22.2% of the study participants had anxiety. Respondents who are Being female (AOR =2.63, 95% CI 1.399, 4.931), those who divorced (AOR =2.42, 95% CI 1.165, 5.023), started ART (AOR =2.74, 95% CI 1.425, 5.264) and perceived stigma (AOR=9.34, 95% CI 5.435, 16.176) were found to be significantly associated with anxiety. Conclusion and Recommendation: Prevalence of anxiety was found to be high on people living with HIV at Debretabor general hospital ART clinic. Being female, perceived stigma , started ART and divorced were significantly associated to anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of screening and treatment of anxiety as an integral component of HIV care.