Asres Bedaso, Dayanand Belagavi, Gezahegn Bekele and Nibretie Mekonnen
Introduction: Anxiety is vague, subjective, non-specific feeling of uneasiness, apprehension, tension, a sense of impending doom, irrational avoidance of objects or situation. Anxiety is one of the co-morbidities that are often overlooked in treating patients with Human Immuno Deficiency Virus. Specific prevalence of anxiety is difficult to identify as aresult of the wide variations across the globe, ranging from 7% to 82.3%. Objective: Assessment of prevalence of anxiety and associated factors among ART clients attending ART Clinic at Hawassa Universty Referral Hospital, Hawassa, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Methods and Material: Institutional based cross sectional study design was conducted from March 1 to 30/2016 among 291 patients who attended ART clinic at Hawassa University Referral Hospital. Respondents were selected using Systematic random sampling technique. SPSS 20 was used for data entry and analysis. Crude and adjusted Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were computed to assess the degree of association between dependent and independent variables, also p-values were used to decide statically significance variables. Result: Out of 291, total of 265 patients were included in the study making the response rate 91%. Out of which, 17.4 % of the study participants had anxiety. Being female was 8.2 times (AOR=8.2, 95% CI (2.67, 25.3) more likely to have anxiety. Also patients who report perceived stigma were 2.7 times more likely to have anxiety (AOR= 2.7 95% CI (1.19, 6.05). CD4 count was another factor associated with anxiety those with CD4 count <500 cells/ml were 2.6 times more likely to have compared those who didn’t remember CD4 count (AOR=2.56, 95% CI 1.22, 5.33). Conclusion: Prevalence of anxiety was found to be high among people living with HIV at Hawassa University Referral Hospital ART clinic. Age greater than or equal to 38 years, being female, CD4 count <500 cells/ml and perceived stigma were significantly associated to anxiety.