Patient-Reported Satisfaction Following Post-bariatric Surgery: A Systematic Review.

Abstract

The aims of our study were to identify studies that evaluated patient satisfaction following post-bariatric surgery, analyse existing questionnaires, and summarise their development, psychometric properties, and content. A multistep search was undertaken on the web-based PubMed database from the National Library of Medicine to identify studies on patient satisfaction and quality of life following post-bariatric surgery. The authors summarised all the questionnaires used in every study and categorised them as generic, surgery specific, or ad hoc, and whether they contained either validated or unvalidated measures. Our search generated a total of 1754 articles. We performed a systematic review of the 12 remaining studies, because these had sufficient data and met the inclusion criteria. All the studies identified from the literature review were assessed to determine the type of surgery used, and whether or not the questionnaire used to analyse patient satisfaction had been validated. The questionnaires were analysed by reviewers to assess adherence to the rules of the US Food and Drug Administration and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Medical Outcomes Trust. We identified 20 individual questionnaires that included 10 generic instruments that assessed quality of life, six instruments specific for post-bariatric surgery, three instruments specific for breast surgery. In post-bariatric patients, the BODY-Q was shown to be a more objective and confident measure for evaluating the quality of life of patients following post-bariatric surgery. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .