Background: HIV attacks the CD4 cell which is responsible for the body's immune response to infectious agents. The main objective of this study was to identify Predictors of Viral Load Result over time among HIV Patients Initiated HAART in Zewditu Memorial Hospital.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study design was conducted on 161 HIV infected patients under HAART whose follow-ups were from January 2014 up to December 2017. Generalized linear mixed-effects model (Binary logistic regression model) for status of viral load result was used for inferential data analysis. The Hosmer and Lemeshow Goodness of fit Test and the likelihood ratio tests were used for measures of goodness of fit for categorical data
Results: The descriptive statistics revealed that the longitudinal response variable which was viral load status among HIV patient’s, in the study 90 of the patients were detected at baseline and 71 of them were not detected at baseline measurements. The estimated odds of the detected patients who lived in rural area was found to be about 6.3 (AOR= 6.30) times that of the odds of detected patients in urban area controlling for the other variables in the model. The estimated odds of the detected disclosed patients was found to be about 80.5% (AOR=0.195) less likely than the odds of detected not disclosed Patients by controlling for the other variables in the model.
Conclusions: The predictor variables; observation time, weight, residence, age, educational level, clinical stage, functional status, baseline CD4 cell count and disclosure were statistically and significantly associated with status of viral load. The proportional odds model assumption was also checked numerically using Hosmer and Lemeshow goodness-of-fit statistics. The results justified that the assumption was fulfilled.