Food security during the COVID-19 home confinement: A cross-sectional study focusing on adults in Malaysia

The surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission cases has led to the decision to execute the Movement Control Order (MCO) by the Federal Government of MalaysiaEconomic activities, psychological wellbeing, and food security may be negatively affected by the implementation of MCO. Therefore, this study aims to assess the prevalence of food insecurity and its associated factors during the enforcement of MCO 1.0. A total of 162 respondents were enrolled in this study using convenience and snowball sampling approaches. Socio-demographic information was self-reported by the respondents. Food security and the presence of depressive symptoms during the MCO 1.0 were assessed with Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) and Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), respectively. Current findings demonstrated that the prevalence of food insecurity was 43.2%. Ethnicity, marital status, employment status, monthly earned income and being the head of a household were significantly associated (p