The Department of Endocrinology, 
Psychiatric Burden in the Morbidly Obese in Multidisciplinary Bariatric Clinic in South India.
- Department of Psychiatry, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
- Department of Epidemiology, ICMR-National Institute for Research in Environmental Health, Madhya Pradesh, India.
- Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
- Non Communicable Diseases Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
- Department of Surgery, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Indian journal of psychological medicine Vol. 40 · Issue 2 · pp. 129-133
PMID 29962568 DOI 10.4103/ijpsym.ijpsym_187_17
Cite This Article
Stephen Amarjeet Jiwanmall, Dheeraj Kattula, Munaf Babajan Nandyal, Shanmugasundaram Devika, Nitin Kapoor, Mini Joseph, Sandhiya Paravathareddy, Sahana Shetty, Thomas V Paul, Simon Rajaratnam, Nihal Thomas, Vijay Abraham, Inian Samarasam. Psychiatric Burden in the Morbidly Obese in Multidisciplinary Bariatric Clinic in South India. Indian journal of psychological medicine. 2018;40(2):129-133. doi:10.4103/ijpsym.ijpsym_187_17
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Obesity is a global epidemic. Bariatric surgery is being considered as the treatment of choice in morbid obesity. Psychiatric comorbidity affects outcomes in this population. There is a dearth of data on psychiatric profile of the morbidly obese from Indian subcontinent. We studied people with morbid obesity to estimate the psychiatric burden among them and to identify factors associated for developing psychiatric disorders.
METHODOLOGY: This is a cross-sectional study done in a bariatric clinic of a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India. Sixty morbidly obese patients were evaluated by psychiatrists and data from medical records were collected and analyzed. Prevalence of psychiatric disorders was estimated. They were compared with patients without psychiatric disorders using appropriate statistical tests.
RESULTS: Nearly 33.33% of the patients had a psychiatric disorder. Depression and dysthymia accounted for about half of those cases. The variables that were associated with psychiatric disorders were current suicidal ideation, past self-injurious behavior, perceived poor social support, and past psychiatric history.
CONCLUSION: One-third of the morbidly obese patients having psychiatric disorder is suggestive of high comorbidity. Considering this active involvement of psychiatrists in bariatric clinic would be useful.
Keywords
- Bariatric
- comorbidity
- obesity
- psychiatric
