Sociodemographic and immunological profile of HIV positive patients in a Nigerian population

Background: It is important to study the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS because the clinical spectrum of HIV can vary with different socioeconomic and geographical environments. Information from the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in any community is necessary as the most effective approaches for the prevention and control of the disease involve education and changes in certain lifestyle practices. This study was undertaken to determine the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics as well as the treatment seeking behavior of HIV seropositive patients attending the Special Treatment Clinic (STC) of National hospital in Abuja, Nigeria.Methods: The study was a hospital based cross sectional study involving three hundred consenting HIV seropositive patients. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect data on socioeconomic characteristics and clinical information. Data was entered into MS excel spreadsheet and analyzed using SPSS-17 software package.Results: Mean age of study subjects was 37.1 years ± 8.6 years, 62.5% were females, 54.3% were married and only 3% had no formal education. Sixty six and a half percent of the respondents were employed and 78.6% of those who were employed earned higher than the Government approved national minimum wage in Nigeria. At the time of registration for care, 67.7% of the respondents had CD4 cell counts <200cells/mm3 showing evidence of late presentation with advanced HIV disease as defined by the European Late Presenter Consensus Working Group. Late presentation with advanced disease was more common among males, rural dwellers, those older than 40 years and those who were unmarried.Conclusions: Most of the affected population included females within the reproductive and economically productive age group. Those who presented late for care included respondents over 40 years of age, rural dwellers and the unmarried respondents. It is imperative that preventive health programs should be targeted at these vulnerable groups so as to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS as well as prevent late presentation for care whenever the infection occurs.Keywords: HIV/AIDS, CD4 cell count, Sociodemographic characteristics, Presentation with advanced HIV diseas