2.1. Study Population

This study consisted of two substudies. In the first substudy, we included PHIV patients who visited the outpatient clinic at the Amsterdam UMC, location Academic Medical Center (AMC), Emma Children’s Hospital in Amsterdam at least on two occasions over a period of eight years between September 2012 and September 2020. For the second substudy, we included participants from a longitudinal cohort study: the Neurological, cOgnitive and VIsual performance in HIV-infected ChildrEn (NOVICE) study. The NOVICE study longitudinally assessed neurological, cognitive and visual performance in PHIV children and adolescents compared to healthy controls that were frequency matched for age, sex, socio-economic status and ethnic background between December 2012 and January 2014 (1st visit) and between February 2017 and July 2018 (2nd visit). The study characteristics were published previously [19].

The study protocols adhered to tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and followed the guidelines provided by the ethics committee of the Amsterdam University Medical Center, location AMC.

We obtained written informed consent from all parents or legal guardians and all children aged 12 years and older. The NOVICE study was registered with the Dutch Trial Register (Netherlands Trial Register) as NTR4074.