Assessment of Undernutrition and Its Influencing Factors among Prisoners Living with HIV/AIDS in North Shoa Zone Amhara Region Ethiopia, 2022

Abstract

Background: Nutrition status is one of the health problems in developing countries.Prisons typically comprise marginalized sections of society and at high nutritional risk due to lack of diet diversity; And there is a lack of clarity on the dimensions of food security this study was identifying malnutrition and associated factors among prisoners to alleviate the problem.Objective: This study aimed to assess the nutritional status and influencing factors among prisoners in North Shoa prison, Ethiopia in 2021.Method: Institution based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from August 01 to September 10; 2021.Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to recruit a total of 364 study participants.Data has been collected by using interviewer administered questionnaire.Weight and height measured and BMI was calculated as weight/height (kg/m2).Haemoglobin measurement has been measured by a simple procedure for determining iron level in blood using Hemo-cue methods.Cleaned data was entered to Epi data version 3.1 and transferred to SPSS version 25 for further analysis, Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was fitted to identify factors associated with under nutrition (nutritional status).Significance variable was obtained with adjusted odds ratio at 95% CI of p< 0.05.Result: The overall prevalence of under nutrition among prisoners estimated as 33.8% (95% CI 28.8-39.3);and the prevalence of anaemia among PLHIV and negative serostatus residents was 54.2%, 50.8% respectively.The respondents who had anaemia were 3.26 times more likely to develop malnutrition AOR ) than who had no anaemia.had anaemia ), hadn't social support ), age group 30 to 39 (AOR 0.180 [95 % CI 0.038-0.844]),use alcohol before jail ).Conclusion:The prevalence of malnutrition among prisoners in north Shoa zone was high and haemoglobin (anaemia) was found as an important risk factor associated with malnutrition.