Incidence, survival time and associated factors of virological failure among adult HIV/AIDS patients on first line antiretroviral therapy in St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College—A retrospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION: Human Immune deficiency Virus or Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a pandemic affecting millions around the world. The 2020 the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS report stated that the estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) is 38 million globally by 2019. Ethiopia is among HIV high burden countries in Africa. By 2021, PLHIV in Ethiopia is estimated to be 754, 256. Globally out of 25.4 million PLHIV on ART, 41% reported virally non-suppressed. According to UNAIDS, the estimated viral non-suppression in Ethiopia is about 27%. METHODOLOGY: A hospital based retrospective cohort study was conducted among 323 patients who were enrolled to ART from July 2016 to December 2020. The medical records of study participants were selected using simple random sampling technique & data was collected using data extraction checklist. The collected data was entered and cleaned using SPSS V.25. Kaplan–Meier is used to estimate the cumulative hazard of virological failure at different time points. During bivariate analysis variables with p<0.25 were taken for Multivariate Cox regression analysis to assess predictors of virological failure & statistically significant association was declared at p<0.05 with 95% confidence interval. RESULT: The overall incidence rate of virological failure was 1.75 per 1000 months of observations. The mean survival time of virological failure was 14.80 months. Disclosure of sero-status (AHR = 0.038, 95% CI: 0.008–018), poor adherence (AHR = 4.24, 95% CI: 1.04–16), having OIs (Opportunistic infections) (AHR = 4.59, 95% CI: 1.17–18) and use of cotrimoxazole (CPT) prophylaxis (AHR = 0.13, 95% CI: 0.026–0.68) have shown statistically significant association with virological failure. CONCLUSION: The incidence of virological failure among patients on first line ART in St. Paul’s hospital is low. Disclosure of sero-status, poor adherence, having OIs and use of CPT prophylaxis were associated with virological failure. Therefore, a due attention needs to be given to these factors in order to minimize virological failure in patients on ART.