A New PROM in Patients with Obesity and After Metabolic Surgery: The OBESI-Q

Background: Collecting relevant patient reported quality of life (QoL) is challenging. A national multidisciplinary task force including patient representatives selected six relevant scales from the validated BODY-Q questionnaire. This subset, named OBESI-Q, was introduced in our center alongside other standard practice questionnaires to determine first scores as a starting point for future research. Materials and Methods: The OBESI-Q comprises 48 questions, which are divided into six domains: eating behavior, social well-being, psychological well-being, sexual well-being, physical activity, and body image. Between January 2020 and January 2021, the RAND-36, OBESI-Q, and European Quality of Life Five Dimension (EQ-5D)-5L questionnaires were completed by n = 360 patients with no prior bariatric treatment. The majority of these patients underwent surgery and n = 222 reported their QoL through the OBESI-Q again 1 year postoperatively. Results: The highest score in the OBESI-Q subscales was for social well-being and the lowest for body image. Of the 222 patients who filled out the OBESI-Q postoperatively, all subscales were improved after surgery of which the body image subscale improved the most (+38.4). This improvement was not correlated with the amount of weight loss. Conclusion: QoL improves after surgery, with the greatest improvement in body image. More total weight loss did not lead to higher QoL scores.