PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE OF PATIENTS ELIGIBLE FOR BARIATRIC SURGERY.

Background: The psychologist who works in bariatric surgery has a role to receive, evaluate, prepare and educate the patient who will undergo the surgical procedure. Psychological evaluation becomes important in so far as allows us to obtain data on personal and familiar history and allow tracing of possible psychopathology.

Aim: To collect data on psychological evaluations of patients in a bariatric surgery service of a public hospital in order to describe the psychological profile of patients in this service.

Method: Data were collected from 827 patients between 2001 and 2015, using data from an interview, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Binge Eating Scale (BES).

Results: The mean age of patients before surgery was 39 years+/- 10, the mean BMI was 51 kg/m²+7, and most patients (81%) were female. The average score on the BDI was 14.8+8 and women had significantly higher scores than men. On the BAI the average score was 11+8 and on the ECAP was 14+8, both with no difference between groups.

Conclusions: Psychosocial characteristics of the patients points to the significant presence of indicators of depression, with low levels of anxiety and binge eating.