Hospitalizations and its related factors in HIV/AIDS patients in Tehran, Iran

HIV/AIDS patients are mainly hospitalized for HIV-related diseases and opportunistic infections. This study was performed to determine the causes of hospitalization and its related factors in HIV/AIDS patients in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Hospital during 2009-2012. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. HIV patients admitted to the Imam Khomeini Hospital were included in the study through census method, during the study. Demographic variables, hepatitis co-infection, CD4 count, history of receiving anti- retroviral therapy (ART), cause of admission, length of hospitalization and patient''s outcome were recorded. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and by means of Chisquare and Mann Whitney U tests. During the study, 555 HIV patients were included in, 84.9% of whom were male, with the mean age of 36.59±8.51 years and the average length of hospitalization for 16.04±18.82 days. Opportunistic infections were the most common cause of hospitalization (46.5%) with prevalent of which was pulmonary tuberculosis being the most prevalent (37.6%). Patients suffering from opportunistic infections had significantly lower CD4 count and longer hospitalization than the other diseases. A significant difference was detected between patients outcome and the history of ART. Low CD4 count may contribute to an increase in number and length of hospitalization in HIV/AIDS patients. Accordingly, it appears to affect outcome of their treatment and ART was accompanied by a drop in the death rate of hospitalized patients.