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Association between depression and eating behaviors among bariatric surgery candidates in a Turkish sample

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore further whether depression is associated with problematic eating behaviors in a sample of Turkish bariatric surgery candidates.

Methods

This descriptive study included 168 consecutively seen bariatric surgery candidates in a university bariatric surgery outpatient. Participants were asked to complete the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and surveys assessing sociodemographic and clinical variables. Correlations and linear regression analyses were performed to evaluate the relationship between clinical and demographic variables.

Results

Participants had a mean age 37.7 ± 11.3 years and BMI of 46.4 ± 6.7 kg/m2 (SD = 6.7). According to BDI scores, 75.5 % of the patients had mild, moderate, or severe depressive symptomatology. Lower levels of depressive symptoms were associated with higher levels of restrictive eating (r = −0.17; p = 0.04), whereas higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent eating in response to both internal (r = 0.3; p = 0.002) and external (r = 0.2; p = 0.04) cues. The BDI scores were significantly associated with increased external eating (ß = 0.03, p < 0.02) and emotional eating (ß = 0.03, p < 0.002) scores. BMI (β = −0.02, p = 0.02 > 0.1) was not associated with DEBQ total scores.

Conclusions

This research suggests that mild, moderate or severe depressive symptoms are observed in most of the bariatric surgical candidate patients. There is a positive correlation between severity of depression and emotional/external eating behaviors, and a negative correlation between severity of depression and restrictive eating behavior. Additional research is needed to determine whether treating depression preoperatively can assist with alleviating problematic eating behaviors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Güzin M. Sevinçer

  2. Department of Psychiatry Istanbul, Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey

    Numan Konuk

  3. Bakırköy Research and Training Hospital for Psychiatry, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Istanbul, Turkey

    Derya İpekçioğlu

  4. Department of Clinical Research, Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Fargo, ND, USA

    Ross D. Crosby

  5. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of North Dakota School of Medicine, Fargo, ND, USA

    Li Cao

  6. Department of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Halil Coskun

  7. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of North Dakota School of Medicine, Fargo, ND, USA

    James E. Mitchell

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  1. Güzin M. Sevinçer
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Correspondence to Güzin M. Sevinçer.

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There was no specific funding for this study.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individiual participants included in the study.

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Sevinçer, G.M., Konuk, N., İpekçioğlu, D. et al. Association between depression and eating behaviors among bariatric surgery candidates in a Turkish sample. Eat Weight Disord 22, 117–123 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-016-0296-2

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