Patient Perspectives on Adherence with Micronutrient Supplementation After Bariatric Surgery

Overview

Journal Obes Surg

Date 2019 Jan 18

PMID 30652245

Citations 28

Authors

Kamal K Mahawar

Ken Clare

Mary OKane

Yitka Graham

Lindes Callejas-Diaz

William R J Carr

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Adherence to post-bariatric surgery nutritional supplements can be poor and is associated with higher micronutrient deficiency rates. There is currently no available study specifically seeking patients' perspectives on the reasons behind poor adherence and how to address it.

Methods: Bariatric surgery patients living in the UK were invited to take part in an anonymous survey on SurveyMonkey®.

Results: A total of 529 patients (92.61% females, mean age 47.7 years) took part. Most of these patients had undergone either a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (63.0%) or sleeve gastrectomy (24.0%). Most of the patients were in full-time (49.0%, n = 260/529) or part-time (15.7%, n = 83/529) employment. Approximately 54.0% (n = 287/529) of the respondents reported having trouble taking all their supplements. Males were significantly more likely to report complete compliance. The most important reported reason for poor compliance was difficulty in remembering (45.6%), followed by too many tablets (16.4%), side effects (14.3%), cost (11.5%), non-prescribing by GP (10.8%), bad taste (10.1%), and not feeling the need to take (9.4%). Patients suggested reducing the number of tablets (41.8%), patient education (25.7%), GP education (24.0%), reducing the cost (18.5%), and more information from a healthcare provider (12.5%) or a pharmacist (5.2%) to improve the compliance.

Conclusions: This study is the first attempt to understand patient perspectives on poor adherence to post-bariatric surgery nutritional recommendation. Patients offered a number of explanations and also provided with suggestions on how to improve it.

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