HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG PEOPLE LIVING WITH HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS/ACQUIRED IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME ON ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS OF GAMBELLA TOWN, SOUTHWEST ETHIOPIA: A CROSS SECTIONAL S

Background: Assessing health-related quality of people living with HIV measures patient’s service delivery and outcome of care. However, PLHIV in Gambella are highly impacted associated with high turnover, agricultural investment, mining resources and cross bordering. in addition, sociocultural determinants like polygamy, shared marriage and multiple sexual practice has put at risk of impoverished quality of life. Therefore, I assessed the magnitude and associated factors of health-related quality of life among adult PLHIV on Anti-retroviral therapy in public hospitals in Gambella Town, Southwest Ethiopia. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among 389 people living with HIV in public hospitals of Gambella town, Southwest Ethiopia yielding a response rate of 98.5%. A simple random sampling technique was employed to enroll study participants which was conducted from June 1 to 30, 2024. Apart from the interview, data abstraction tool was used to extract data from patient medical records. Health related quality of life was assessed using the World Health Organization Quality of Life HIVBREF (WHOQOL-HIV-BREF) standard tool. Data were entered into Epideta version 3.5.3 and analyzed using SPSS version 26 for windows. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was fitted to identify factors associated with the overall Health related quality of life and AOR with 95% CI was computed to measure the association of predictors with outcome a statistical significance was declared at 0.05 p value. Result: The study showed that 53.47% 95% CI (49.10-58.10%) of respondents had goodoverall HRQoL, in which, the level of independence domain ranked first with 261(67.1%) followed by environmental domain which accounts 223(57.3%). PLHIV from General hospital (AOR = (AOR = 5.79, 95% CI = (2.64,12.67), age =12 v mg/dl (AOR=2.05, 95% CI (1.24, 3.38), were identified as independent predictors of good HRQoL at (p<0.0Recommendations: PLHIV should receive targeted intervention giving due emphasis to their age. They should also refrain from substances and encouraged to get health education, counseling and support.