Diet for arthritis (DART): project to assess eating behaviour and build a targeted intervention for people with arthritis

Diet for Arthritis (DART) project aims to improve our understanding of (1) eating behaviour among people living with arthritis and (2) how disability related to arthritis impacts dietary intake, in order to (3) develop a targeted intervention to improve the nutritional intake for people living with arthritis. Given increased levels of disability, it is hypothesized that people living with arthritis are at risk for inadequate dietary intake; however, there is a lack of research to support this hypothesis and the possible reasons for nutritional inadequacy are not clear. Dietary intake and physical functioning will be assessed using existing data from participants identified with arthritis from the CLSA, a large sample of middle-age and older Canadian adults.

A secondary data analysis of Baseline CLSA data was conducted. Both the Tracking and Comprehensive cohorts were used, resulting in a sample size of 41,153. Nutritional risk (outcome of interest) was based on the SCREEN II-AB questionnaire data; arthritis (independent variable of interest) was based on self-report. Functional impairment was tested as a moderator in the analysis, and was based on the Older Americans Resources and Services questionnaire data. Hierarchical linear and logistic regression analyses controlled for age, sex, household income, education, number of people in the household, race, weight-status, self-rated general health and self-rated mental health (model 1), additionally controlled for meal preparation impairment (model 2), and additionally controlled for functional impairment that was not related to meal preparation (model 3).

We found that people living with arthritis have a poorer nutritional score than people who do not have arthritis after adjusting for demographic and health characteristics. The nutritional disparity is starker if the person also reports difficulties with performing activities of daily living. Our results also highlight a need for adapted nutrition interventions that provide both knowledge and technical skills to help individuals overcome the challenges of arthritis.