Psychological status of morbidly obese women before gastric restriction surgery

One hundred and eighteen of 142 morbidly obese women had gastric restriction surgery after completing self-report questionnaire measures of psychosocial adjustment as part of their preoperative psychiatric assessment. Compared with an age-matched normal population, they scored significantly higher on measures of phobic anxiety, somatization, depression, hostility, and marital dissatisfaction, the last being associated mainly with later onset obesity. Factor analysis of questionnaire and weight data showed that weight was largely independent of psychological adjustment, although associations occurred when analysis was restricted to the data on married women, in which marital and self-assertion abnormalities loaded significantly on the same factor.