The body perception, resilience, and distress symptoms in candidates for bariatric surgery and post bariatric surgery

Background According to the literature, patients requesting bariatric surgery have a higher prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities compared to severely obese patients who do not seek the surgical procedure for their desired weight loss. This study was designed with the aim of analyzing the relationship between the components of psychological distress and the presence of functional and adaptive resources of resilience in a sample of patients candidates for bariatric surgery. Methods All patients were enrolled from September 2019 to January 2020, carried out a clinical psychological assessment aimed at identifying any psychological contraindications to candidates to bariatric surgery. This study involves the administration of questionnaires for the evaluation of psychological functioning, emotional and behavioral self-regulation mechanisms, and resilience qualities. Results Depressive symptoms resulted in 26% of the sample, and 23% had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety. Additionally, 46% of the subjects also demonstrated difficulty in self-regulation of emotional states, with impulsive traits in 10%. Binge eating disorder was identified in 38% of the subjects. The most important outcomes of this study are as follows: (1) Global component of resiliency was differentially distributed in extreme idoneity classes. (2) Clinical judgement of eligibility can be mimicked by a psychometric profiling of patients. Conclusions We defined the parameters of resilience as a sort of psycho-marker that, for the same as discomfort indices, can orientate the clinicians to allow them to properly assess the patient's psychological suitability for the surgery.