Introduction: This study explored whether health-related quality of life (HRQOL) changes following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery were associated with identifiable socio-demographic or clinical characteristics, and it examined the impact on health outcomes of changes in the Danish criteria for bariatric surgery.
Material and methods: Participants (n = 55) completed the Short Form Health Survey v2 (SF-36) before and 22 ± 4.2 months after surgery. Information on socio-demographics, body mass index (BMI), co-morbidity and satisfaction with surgery were collected through patient questionnaires and hospital records.
Results: There was overall improvement on all SF-36 subscales and in the mean physical score (PCS) and mean mental score (MCS) (p = 0.001). A total of five patients had lower PCS and 13 patients had lower MCS after surgery, but we identified no particular characteristics associated with this poorer outcome. Co-morbidity and preoperative PCS/MCS showed a strong correlation with change in PCS/MCS score.
Conclusion: Gastric bypass had a positive overall effect on HRQOL, but further investigation of individual variations is needed. We found no significant differences in HRQOL outcome between those patients who would be accepted for bariatric surgery under the current Danish criteria for bariatric surgery and those patients who only fulfilled the criteria for bariatric surgery before 2011.
Funding: not relevant.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02032199.