I'm getting bariatric surgery and?

the hospital says i need to have a psychiatric evalution...does anyone know what i should expect from this?

First you will have a thoughtfull discussion with a trained psychologist. You will talk about why you think this kind of surgury is the best solution. You will be expected to talk about why other diet solutions have not worked. You will talk about goals and expectations. You will probably be asked about what kind of physical and moral support you have at home and among your friends.

Then, he will probalbly give you an evaluation form. It is some kind of standard test. (I wish I could remember the name of it) It consists of a lot of questions about your feelings and attitudes about a lot of things. Some are specific and some are general. It will seem as if many questions are repeating, but actually, similar questions will approach things from a slightly different point of view. These are designed to make it difficult for you to simply choose an answer just because you think it is the expected one.

It's hard to "cheat" on this test, so it's best not to try. Read each question carefully and try to give your best possible, honest answer.

The psychologist will send the test to a scoring facility and the results will come back a week or two later, when you will be called back in to discuss the results. You should find this part of the discussion VERY interesting and educational.

No need to feel nervous. The bariatric team wants to make sure that you are a good candidate for this surgury. The operation is relatively easy for you. It is afterwards that determine if it is a successful procedure. They don't want to put you at risk of surgury if there is little chance of it working.

Good luck and good health, Liza!

The psych eval is just to make sure that you're psychologically normal. I was just in clinic with one of my attendings who is a bariatric surgeon. He sends everyone to get a psych eval first. There are a few reasons for this. First, they want to make sure that you want the surgery for health reasons and not just for cosmetic reasons, which is not a good reason to do life altering surgery on a patient. Secondly, they need to make sure that you don't have any underlying psych issues that could cause negative outcomes after the surgery. For example someone with severe depression is not likely to take care of themselves post operatively. The questions ought to be just basic well being questions, although I've never sat in on an eval so I can't tell you exactly what they ask.

I hope this helps.

Is very normal they need to know is your are prepared for the changes after the surgery, the doctor talk with you and ask questions above the reason to decide to do the operation and in general is you understand the change that the operation causes. At least this was my experience.