Suicide Appears to be Linked to Bariatric Surgery

Bariatric surgery has become the gold standard for treating morbidly obese patients (patients with a BMI greater than 40). And the number of patients obtaining the surgery increased at least tenfold between 1998 and 2008. Therefore, bariatric surgery has achieved prominence over the past decade. However, research done at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, suggests that suicide may be a significant complication of the weight loss surgery.

The research, which investigated a link between suicide and bariatric surgery, was highlighted in an October 2007 Medscape article. The title of the article was "Higher-Than-Expected Suicide Rate Following Bariatric Surgery." And a November 2010 Pub Med abstract entitled, "Risk of Suicide After Long-term Follow-up of Bariatric Surgery,” also documented work done at the University. The work was directed at examining the risk of suicide a year or more after bariatric surgery.

The 2007 investigation looked at data pertaining to obese residents in Pennsylvania who had undergone bariatric surgery between January 1, 1995 and December 31, 2004. During this period, there were 440 deaths among the bariatric patients. And at least 16 of these deaths were due to suicide.

"Based on statistics for the general US population," only two of the 440 deaths should have been attributable to suicide. Therefore, because of the increased number of suicides, some of the suicides are likely linked to the bariatric surgery.

The suicides occurred at least one year following the surgery. This leads to the conclusion that follow-up intervention, to bariatric surgery, may be crucial to long-term mental health, as well as physical health. In fact, counseling prospective bariatric surgical patients before the surgery is important, since some of the obese patients are probably suffering from depression.

Hence, primary care physicians and bariatricians could indeed play vital preoperative and postoperative roles in the overall obese patients' treatment. The physicians could work with the patients before the surgery, helping the patients prepare for the surgery. And the physicians could provide long-term counseling and other services after the surgery.

As some experts have said, non-surgical and surgical bariatric practitioners must work together to produce weight loss and long-term weight management among obese patients. This collaboration would be quite beneficial to the patients, since the non-surgical practitioner would be able to provide the patients with ongoing medical weight management support.

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Tags: strategic management, bariatric medicine, environmental scanning, balanced scorecard