Abstract
Introduction:
The prevalence of obesity has increased and bariatric surgery represents an effective standard option in obesity management that evidence-based guidelines recommend. However, currently only a minority of eligible patients get access to surgical treatments. This may be influenced by a lack of information by healthcare professionals or by ineffective and inaccurate communication.
Methods:
We therefore conducted an anonymized survey among patients candidates to bariatric surgery to understand the perception of the information received by the bariatric team. The questionnaire also explored the factors influencing the decision process leading to surgery. The questionnaire consisted of 9 multi-choice questions with only an answer allowed for each question.
Results:
45% of patients declared to have good personal knowledge about bariatric surgery, and 42.5% had only a sufficient level of information. 42.5% of patients discovered bariatric surgery as a treatment option for obesity from their friends or relatives, 22.5% from a specialist doctor. The main expectation from a bariatric procedure was represented in 52% of cases by improvement of quality of life, in 20% of cases by weight loss, in 17.5% by improvement of cardiometabolic risk factors, and in 10% by improvement of orthopedic diseases.
Conclusions:
The main motivation to choose bariatric surgery was related to health status or quality of life. The level of satisfaction with the information received by the healthcare providers turned out to be overall good but lower for postoperative complications and nutritional indications after surgery. The main concern about bariatric surgery is represented by perioperative complications.
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