Background and Objective(s): Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that results in a chronic, systemic inflammation. Food insecurity is defined as the limited or uncertain availability of enough food for an always active and healthy life. Due to the impact of food insecurity in chronic diseases as stressor and its impact on food intake, this study aimed to assess the association between food insecurity as well as some other socio-economic factors and rheumatoid arthritis in newly diagnosed patients.

Materials and Methods: A case-control study was conducted on 60 patients with rheumatoid arthritis admitted to the clinics of Shariati and Imam Khomeini Hospitals in Tehran as cases, and 60 healthy individuals without rheumatoid arthritis as controls while age and sex were matched. Generally, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and food insecurity status were compared. Diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis was according to the medical records by a specialist, food insecurity was according to the 18-item USDA household food insecurity questionnaire, and socio-economic characteristics were collected through general information questionnaires. Data were analyzed with SPSS IBM20 software. The relationship between rheumatoid arthritis and food insecurity was evaluated using logistic regression, and mean quantitative data analyzed with t-test. The difference between qualitative variables was analyzed with Chi-square test.

Results: In this study, the positive association between rheumatoid arthritis and food insecurity was found. The prevalence of food insecurity among patients was 82%, and in healthy subjects it was 47% (P <0/001).

With increasing the severity of food insecurity, the risk of rheumatoid arthritis increased. Economic level, marital status and education correlated with rheumatoid arthritis. However, after multiple conditional logistic regression, food insecurity and marriage were significantly associated to rheumatoid arthritis (P<0.05). The severity of food insecurity was significantly associated with the severity of disease, morning stiffness of joints inflammation. In addition, food insecurity points was significantly associated with pain score in the patients with food insecurity (p <0/001).

Conclusion: This study demonstrates the high prevalence of food insecurity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and a significant positive association between the severity of food insecurity with pain score and signs of rheumatoid arthritis.

Keywords: Food insecurity, Rheumatoid arthritis, Socio-economic factors, Pain score