Psycho-behavioral Factors Related to Weight Regain After Bariatric Surgery

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the connection between weight regain 2 to 5 years after bariatric surgery and three psycho-behavioral factors: mental health, general health efficacy, and emotional regulation.

Method: A convenience sample of 120 participants was recruited, 80 of whom had already had bariatric surgery 2 to 5 years earlier, whereas 40 were candidates for such procedure but did not undergo it yet. Each participant filled a consent form, a socio-demographic one, and extra three questionnaires related to socio-behavioral characteristics: Mental Health Inventory (MHI), General Self-efficacy (GSE), and Difficulty in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS). SPSS version 25 was used to analyze the data, and a one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was conducted to examine the distribution of the continuous variables.

Results: Those in the non-reducers group experienced (2.19 ± 0.63) greater difficulties than the reducers group (1.82 ± 0.39) when it came to their emotional regulation, whereas the candidate group (1.96 ± 0.47) were situated in-between the groups already operated in terms of their DERS scores (p = 0.008). The reducers group had higher GSE scores (2.75 ± 0.35) than the non-reducers group (2.59 ± 0.39) (p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Effective emotional regulation is linked to weight loss maintenance after bariatric surgery. Difficulties in emotional regulation are negatively correlated with maintaining weight loss among bariatric patients who undergo surgery. General self-efficacy is positively correlated with weight loss maintenance after bariatric surgery.