Emotional and behavioral disturbances in school going HIV positive children attending HIV clinic.

Background: To study the emotional and behavioral disturbances (EBD) in school going HIV positive children attending HIV center in a tertiary care hospital.
Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 258 HIV infected children between 6 and 16 years of age, 200 were on Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and 58 were not on ART. They were evaluated for EBD by using Pictorial Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PPSC) screening tool. A cut-off score of 28 was taken as significant for detecting early EBD.
Results: The prevalence of EBD in our study is 11.2%. Demographic and disease related profile were assessed for correlation with EBD. Type of family ( p  = 0.023), school attendance ( p  = 0.034), school performance ( p  = 0.045), and CD4 count ( p  = 0.015) were detected to have significant association with early manifestation of EBD in the study group.
Conclusions: HIV positive children who have low CD4 count, poor school attendance, and performance are at a higher risk of being detected with EBD. Screening with PPSC to identify EBD in HIV positive children attending HIV clinic in a hospital setting could help in early diagnosis and management.