Psychological assessments of bariatric surgery patients. Development, reliability, and exploratory factor analysis of the PsyBari.

BACKGROUND

Bariatric surgery patients are required to receive psychological clearance before they are eligible for surgery. In spite of this, there are no standard assessment practices or tests designed specifically for these evaluations.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is to determine the reliability and construct validity of the PsyBari, a psychological test designed for bariatric surgery patients.

METHODS

The PsyBari was administered to 752 patients. Internal consistency reliability and exploratory factor analyses were conducted.

RESULTS

Items with high percentages of missing data, low communalities, and low item loadings were identified and deleted. Cronbach's α = 0.930 (0.940 for males and 0.927 for females). Six factors were obtained for each gender: for females, awareness of eating habits, early life problems due to weight, dysphoric feelings about weight, weight-related impairment, surgical anxiety, and guilty feelings related to eating; for males, physical impairment with depression, awareness of eating habits, early life problems due to weight, interpersonal support with anxiety about weight, anger, and guilty feelings about eating habits.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that there are unique psychometric parameters when constructing tests for bariatric surgery patients. The PsyBari has good overall reliability, although two of the 11 subscales have poor reliability. Factor analyses revealed six factors for each gender. Some factors were common for both genders, some were unique for each gender, and some consisted of mixed constructs.