OBJECTIVES: Urinary Incontinence (UI) is associated with several chronic health conditions including arthritis. Literature suggests that arthritis may modify the association between chronic conditions and UI. Little is known about this interaction of arthritis with other chronic diseases and their impact on UI.  This study examined these associations.  METHODS:  This was a retrospective case-control study of a 10% random sample of IMS Life Link data from 2001-2011. Subjects were >= 18 years of age and continuously enrolled 18 months pre, and 12 months post their first index diagnosis. UI cases had at least two outpatient or one inpatient and one outpatient claim at least 7 days apart, or one pharmacy claim for a UI drug. Controls without UI had the same eligibility criteria as cases and were matched with cases 3:1 on age, gender and region. Comorbidities are observed in the 12-month pre-index period after leaving 6 months buffer time immediately before index diagnosis. Conditional logistic regression (CLR) adjusted for health system variables and other co-morbidities was used to investigate the effect of the interaction between arthritis and other comorbidities on UI.RESULTS: There were 24,499 cases, and 73,497 controls with a mean age of 58.29 years and 69.8% females. Forty percent of cases and 24.8% of controls had arthritis in their pre index period.  Arthritis alone was significantly associated with UI alone (aOR = 1.87, p<0.0001), multiple Sclerosis (MS) alone (aOR = 4.25, p<0.0001) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) alone (aOR = 1.32, p<0.0001). However, the interaction of arthritis and MS (aOR = 7.48, p<0.0001), and arthritis and CVD (aOR = 2.10, p<0.0001) increased considerably the odds of developing UI.CONCLUSIONS:  Compared to arthritis or chronic conditions alone, the combination of arthritis with other chronic conditions significantly increases the risk of having UI.