Life after Weight Loss Surgery
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patients' Experiences and Health Professionals Views of Life after Weight Loss Surgery - Long term follow up of patients and professionals after weight loss surgery using qualitative interviews.
IRAS ID
160130
Contact name
Sandra Jumbe
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of the West of England, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Research shows that weight loss surgery can result in drastic weight loss and maintenance, plus improve patients' general quality of life and psychological functioning after short term follow up of 1 to 2 years. However, longer term studies show minimal improvements in psychological quality of life and wellbeing after weight loss surgery compared to behavioural interventions like diet and exercise despite overall significant improvements in physical quality of life, drastic weight loss and reductions in related additional diseases like diabetes.
A recent systematic review which looked at psychological wellbeing following weight loss surgery found that although the procedure appeared to be a clinically effective treatment for obese adults results on longer term effectiveness remain uncertain, with some persisting low ratings in psychosocial wellbeing. These findings suggest that despite the induced weight loss and positive physical health improvements that patients experience over time after having weight loss surgery, some psychological problems initially present in the individual suffering from obesity before having the surgical procedure remain. This highlights the need for adequate psychological care of obese patients after weight loss surgery. The findings also emphasise the need for further research in this area to provide more evidence on long term patient psychosocial wellbeing following weight loss surgery.
This research study aims to gain an understanding of the experiences and psychological need s of patients who have undergone weight loss surgery. It also aims to explore the views of NHS health professionals who provide care to patients undergoing weight loss surgery to compare them with those of the service users.
Patients who have had weight loss surgery at least one year ago will be identified through local NHS weight loss surgery hospital services as well as local patient support groups. NHS staff will be identified through NHS weight loss surgery services. Since this service works using a multidisciplinary teams the professional backgrounds of the staff will range from surgeons, psychologists, nurse specialists to dieticians.
Participants willing to take part in this study will meet with the researcher to do a 45 minute interview, where they will be asked questions about their experience of life after weight loss surgery. We estimate that 12 months will be enough to recruit.
We hope that generating more data in this area will help provide health professionals with information on whether patients feel psychological care is needed after weight loss surgery and, if so, specifically what kind of care.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SW/1160
Date of REC Opinion
9 Dec 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion