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. 2021 Oct;26(7):2211-2218.
doi: 10.1007/s40519-020-01068-2. Epub 2020 Nov 23.

Assessing psychopathology in bariatric surgery candidates: discriminant validity of the SCL-90-R and SCL-K-9 in a large sample of patients

Emanuela Bianciardi  1 , Paolo Gentileschi  2 , Cinzia Niolu  3 , Marco Innamorati  4 , Mariantonietta Fabbricatore  4 , Lorenzo Maria Contini  3 , Leonardo Procenesi  3 , Alberto Siracusano  3 , Claudio Imperatori  4
Affiliations

Assessing psychopathology in bariatric surgery candidates: discriminant validity of the SCL-90-R and SCL-K-9 in a large sample of patients

Emanuela Bianciardi et al. Eat Weight Disord. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

Purpose: Pre-surgical psychosocial evaluation of bariatric surgery (BS) patients should identify psychiatric issues that could worsen after surgery and those requiring additional ongoing intervention. In this view, the use of reliable, appropriate and concise evaluating instruments is of critical importance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical utility of both the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and its brief unidimensional version, the so-called Symptom-Checklist-K-9 (SCL-K-9) in detecting the presence of psychiatric disorders among bariatric surgery (BS) candidates.

Methods: Seven-hundred-and-ninety-eight BS candidates (563 women and 235 men; mean age: 44.15 ± 11.45) were enrolled in the present study. All participants underwent a full psychiatric interview and were administered the SCL-90-R.

Results: Three-hundred-and-sixty-two patients (45.4%) met the criteria for a diagnosis of at least one psychiatric disorder and ninety-nine patients (12.4%) had psychiatric comorbidities. In the current sample, 219 patients (27.4%) met the criteria for binge eating disorders (BED), 158 (19.8%) met the criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD), and 67 (8.4%) met both criteria. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves procedure showed that both the SCL-90-R and the SCL-K-9 satisfactorily categorize patients with any psychiatric disorder, both BED and MDD (area under the ROC curve ≥ 0.70, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the SCL-90-R and the SCL-K-9 may represent first-level screening tests identifying at-risk patients, eligible for a more expensive or time-consuming clinical assessment.

Level of evidence: Level V, cross-sectional, descriptive study.

Keywords: Bariatric surgery; Binge eating disorder; Major depressive disorder; Obesity; Psychosocial assessment; SCL-90-R; SCL-K-9.

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Conflict of interest statement

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors and the authors state that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a ROC curve graph for the ability of GSI-9-K and GSI-90 to discriminate between patients with at least one psychiatric disorder (N = 362) vs patients without any psychiatric disorder (N = 436). b ROC curve graph for the ability of GSI-9-K and GSI-90 to discriminate between individuals who receive MDD diagnosis (N = 158) and those without any psychiatric disorder (N = 436). c ROC curve graph for the ability of GSI-9-K and GSI-90 to discriminate between individuals who receive BED diagnosis (N = 219) and those without any psychiatric disorder (N = 436). Abbreviation: ROC receiver operating characteristic, GSI-9-K global severity index of the Symptom Checklist-K-9; GSI-90 global severity index of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, MDD major depressive disorder, BED binge eating disorders
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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