Background: Now a days, studies have shown that HIV infection may affect fertility by influencing desires and
intentions to have children. On the other hand, studies of fertility intentions among HIV-positive individuals have
suffered ambivalence and mixed results while some studies report a strong desire to have children, consistent with
the high social values placed on children and others doesn’t. The relative strength of these conflicting findings varies
according to individual and contextual factors. So, the aim of this study was to determine the magnitude of fertility
desire and factors affecting it.
Method: A facility based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 518 individuals on ART from
February to March 2013. A stratified systematic sampling by sex with proportional to size was employed to select the
study subjects. Bivariate logistic regression was done to see the crude relationship and finally multiple logistic
regressions were employed to identify the independent predictors of fertility desire.
Result: More than half (56.2%) of people living with HIV have fertility desire. Women have 58% times lesser
fertility desire than men likewise age group 30-39 and Age >=40 have 61% and 85% times lesser fertility desire than
18-29 years respectively. Additionally, individuals who have a child in their life time have 76% times lesser desire
than those who doesn’t ever have. Those who were not using family planning were three times higher to desire for a
child than their counter parts and respondents who were not sexually active in the last six months have 77% times
lesser fertility desire than those who were not.
Conclusions: High proportion of people living with HIV had fertility desire. Sex, Age, presence of children in their
life time, use of family planning and sexual activity in the last six months were factors that affect fertility desire.
Consequently, this implies the need for comprehensive reproductive planning and counseling for clients in HIV care
settings in order to meet diverse reproductive intentions of PLWHIV.