Body mass index and mid upper arm circumference measurement at the HIV/AIDS clinic in Saint Peter's Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study compared body mass index (BMI) with MUAC for HIV/AIDS patients attending a clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All 157 HIV/AIDS patients attending the clinic for two weeks in June, 2008, were assessed using both BMI and MUAC. Measurements for MUAC and BMI were correlated (r: 0.62, p<0.001). However, BMI classified 79.6% of the study subjects as normal (≥18.5 kg/m2) while 90% were classified as normal (≥21 cm) by MUAC. Moreover, BMI identified 3.8% each of patients as moderately and severely malnourished while only 1.9% were classified as moderately malnourished by MUAC. No patient was classified as severely malnourished by MUAC. This shows that MUAC under classifies subjects as malnourished compared to BMI. Using MUAC alone might reduce targeting the truly malnourished cases which supposedly should receive nutritional care services. Thus, it is recommended that the current approach of using BMI for assessing nutritional status of HIV/AIDS patients be continued until the two approaches are properly validated in terms of outcomes and are perhaps adjusted for future use.