Mebratu Legesse Bekele and Tsige Gebreanania
Background: Cotrimoxazole, an antibiotic that has been in use for many years, was found to be effective in reducing the occurrence of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in patients with HIV. It has been shown that cotrimoxazole is superior to other forms of prophylaxis in preventing toxoplasma encephalitis. The aim of the study was to evaluate the use of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis and its contributing factors among adult Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infected individuals attending Ayder referral hospital Antiretroviral (ART) clinic.
Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative study was carried out at Ayder referral hospital ART clinic, Mekelle special zone, North Ethiopia from January 3 to 15, 2012. Data regarding patients’ clinical, laboratory findings, residential addresses and medications were abstracted from patients’ records. All data were cleaned and entered into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 16.0 for analysis. Appropriateness of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis was presented descriptively. Bivariate and multivariate statistics using logistic regression were computed and p value of <0.05 was considered as significant.
Results: A total of 267 medical charts were identified and reviewed. The mean age of the patients was 35.19 years and 52.8% were females. The use of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis therapy was found to be appropriate in 255 (95.5%) of the patients. Sex of the patient, Cluster of Differentiation 4 (CD4) count of the patient and World Health Organization (WHO) clinical stage of the patient were found to be significantly associated with the appropriateness of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis therapy
Conclusions: The appropriateness of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis was good (95.5%) among patients living with HIV/AIDS in our study set up even though it was not to the full standard. Inappropriate uses of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis were more likely among female patients, patients with CD4 count >350 cells/mm3 and patients not at WHO clinical stage IV.