Minimum Acceptable Diet and Associated Factors Among HIV-Exposed Children Aged 6–24 Months in Debre Tabor Town, Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: Minimum acceptable diet is a composite indicator of minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency. World Health Organization’s newborn child feeding and HIV guidelines suggestbeginning complementary nourishments at six months, and breastfeeding for HIV-exposed children. HIV infected mothers may be more sensitive on feeding practices to protect their children from contracting the disease. On the other hand, HIV infection is associated with higher risk food insecurity which may affect feeding practices of children. But in Ethiopia, there is lack of evidence on extent of minimum acceptable diet of HIV-exposed children. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess minimum acceptable diet and associated factors among HIV-exposed 6–24 months aged children. METHODS: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted in health institutions of Debre Tabor town. The study was conducted on 287 mother-child pairs attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) at public health facilities. Descriptive statistics like frequency, proportions, mean and standard deviation were computed. Multi-variable logistic regression was run to identify independent predictors of the outcome variable (minimum acceptable diet). A p-value <0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. RESULTS: About 76% (95% CI: 70.8–80.8) and 58.2% (95% CI: 53.0–68.3) children were fed with appropriate meal frequency and recommended dietary diversity, respectively. One hundred (34.8%) (95% CI: 29.3–40.4) of children were fed a minimum acceptable diet and 59.9% (95% CI: 54.0–65.9) of children consumed iron rich or fortified food. Out of the total, 203 (71.0%) (95% CI: 66.1–76.2) of the mothers had good knowledge on minimum dietary diversity and meal frequency feeding practices. In multi-variable logistic regression poor knowledge with AOR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.17–0.58, maternal workload with AOR = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.19–0.75 and inadequate information about child feeding from health care providers with AOR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.26–0.81 were statistically significant predictors of minimum acceptable diet. CONCLUSION: The study revealed that the proportion of children who received minimal acceptable diet was lower than that of WHO recommendation for good practice. Knowledge, maternal workload and information related to complementary feeding were associated with low minimum acceptable diet.