Evaluation of morbid obese patients with attitudes toward obese persons scale prior to bariatric surgery: Obesity from the perspective of real patients

Abstract: Background: The number of studies with the application of scales, such as Attitudes Toward Obese Persons Scale (ATOP), on morbid obese patients are limited. Therefore, we wanted to examine the attitudes toward obese people through the eyes of morbid obese patients. Methods: Between October 2019 - April 2020, 70 female and 20 male, morbid obese patients, who were admitted to the general surgery department to be evaluated for bariatric surgery were included in this study. These 90 morbid obese patients were asked to fill out ATOP, which included 20 statements. Results: The mean ATOP score of all morbid obese patients was 63.44±18.58 (range:19-116). The mean ATOP score of female patients was 63.47±20.34 (range:19-116), whereas the mean ATOP score of male patients was 63.35±10.69 (range:43-80) (p=0.98). The frequency of the responses given by the male and female patients to the third statement, which was “Most obese people are more self-conscious than other people” pointed out a statistically significant difference (p=0.02). Conclusions: Based on ATOP scores gained from morbid obese patients, 60% of morbid obese patients did not feel as happy as non-obese people, whereas 74.4% of the morbid obese patients thought that obese people were not as healthy as nonobese people. Moreover, ATOP scores which were slightly higher than 60 points in both female and male morbid obese patients indicated that morbid obese patients had neither negative nor highly positive attitudes toward obese people.