Emotional experiences of women undergone to bariatric surgery in General Hospital of Unicamp : a clinical qualitative study / Vivencias emocionais de mulheres submetidas a cirurgia bariatrica no Hospital de Clinicas da Unicamp : um estudo clinico-qualitativo

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This study aims at understanding the emotional experiences of morbidly obese women who have undergone bariatric surgery. Obesity has become a serious public health problem worldwide and, due to this, the number of bariatric surgeries, as an option for treating morbid obesity, has grown considerably. However, it is a procedure that involves significant physical and psychosocial changes for the patient. Methodology: We applied the Clinical Qualitative Method to an intentional sample, closed according to the criterion of saturation, of seven women operated on during a period of between one and a half and three years at the University Hospital of UNICAMP (the State University of Campinas, S.P., Brazil). Semidirected interviews with open-ended questions were carried out, recorded, transcribed and analyzed in-depth by the researcher. From this procedure there emerged categories that served as a basis to underpin the results and for the discussion of the material obtained. Results and Discussion: bariatric surgery is related to a substantial improvement in the social acceptance of these patients, increasing their self-esteem and recovering their identity which had been chronically concealed by the excess of body fat. There is a risk of disillusionment with the surgery when pre-operative expectations are unreal. In these cases, there is frequently a loss of motivation to keep up the weight loss. The massive weight loss is also related to feelings of helplessness, especially in those cases where obesity played a defensive role in regard to others and to their own sexuality. Hunger undergoes significant transformations after the surgery, both qualitative and quantitative, which make the struggle to lose weight easier. However, the surgical procedure directly affects the experience of satiety, but not of satiation, which can lead to a sensation of intense personal dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is experienced as anguish and may transform the eating compulsion into other compulsions or even lead to the development of new eating strategies that allow the ingestion of increased quantities of calories resulting in regaining weight. As the surgical procedure brings about a volumetric restriction of the stomach, the patient is soon unable to cope with anxiety by ingesting food. This exposes the impossibility of finding symbolic references for the anguish, showing that hunger for the morbidly obese is an area of psychic representational deficit, which makes it impossible to elaborate the anguish psychically, leaving the body as the only possible means of discharge. Conclusions: Bariatric surgery is a procedure that brings about significant psychic, social and physical transformations for women with morbid obesity. Due to this, the team dealing with this population should have the necessary training to understand and act efficiently both in the pre- and post-operative period. It is a medical procedure which generates huge demands on the patient and, consequently, on the health team, which should include mental health professionals who are prepared to intervene psychologically both with the patients as well as with the emotional movements of the team

ASSUNTO(S)

cirurgia bariatrica psychology obesidade morbida bariatric surgery pesquisa qualitativa obesidade qualitative research obesity psicologia morbid obesity

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