Determinants of Opportunistic Infections Among HIV-Positive Patients on HAART in Debre Berhan Referral Hospital, North Shoa Zone, Ethiopia, 2020: A Case–Control Study

INTRODUCTION: Opportunistic infections are an illness that exists more frequently and is more severe in people with HIV. In HIV/AIDS patients, opportunistic infections still cause morbidity and mortality even after the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and most patients die as direct or indirect complications of opportunistic infections. This study was aimed to identify the determinants for the occurrence of opportunistic infections in HIV-positive patients having HAART follow-up in DBRH, Debre Berhan, Ethiopia. METHODS: A total of 339 study subjects were involved under institution-based unmatched case–control study design and simple random sampling technique. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were entered using Epidata version 3.1 and analyzed for descriptive and logistic regression models by SPSS version 21. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: After adjusting potential confounders, drinking alcohol (AOR=3.12, 95% CI: 1.07–9.06), BMI <18.5 (AOR= 3.36, 95% CI: 1.49–7.55), previous history of opportunistic infections (AOR= 2.96, 95% CI: 1.51–5.8) were independent predictors of opportunistic infections in people living with HIV/AIDS on HAART. CONCLUSION: In this study, the poor clinical and biochemical status, and behavioral factors were being the predictors of the occurrence of opportunistic infections. HIV/AIDS patients must be assessed and screened for opportunistic infections.