Analysis of psychometric questionnaires used in patient selection for bariatric surgery

In severe forms of obesity there is a high prevalence of psychopathological comorbidity. Psychiatric evaluation is an important component of comprehensive obesity care and contributes to optimizing therapeutic results after bariatric surgery.

To assess the effectiveness of psychometric tests used in the protocol for selecting patients for bariatric surgery.

Retrospective naturalistic observational study of 100 patients who were candidates for bariatric surgery. Patients who complete the psychometric protocol and the psychiatric interview between January 2019 and June 2021 are included. Two groups are formed: those considered unfit for any psychopathological reason and those considered fit. To evaluate the effectiveness of the tests used, ROC curves will be used. The sensitivity and specificity values of each test used will be obtained.

97 patients included, aged between 20 and 61 years, 64.9% women. 51.5% had a family history and 38.1% a personal history of any psychiatric disorder. Regarding the area under the curve, the scales that presented a value greater than 0.7 were the YFAS total score (0.771), HADS-D (0.757), the Edinburgh Bulimia total score (0.747), the severity score of YFAS (0.722) and Edinburgh Bulimia Severity Score (0.705). The most frequent diagnoses as a cause of exclusion were Food Addiction 8 (20.5%) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 6 (15.5%).

The YFAS, BITE and HADS-A scales were useful to discriminate those patients considered unsuitable for bariatric surgery for any psychopathological cause.