Abstract

Background: recent studies have shown the effectiveness of bariatric surgery in improving severe obesity, it’s associated with co-morbidities and the level of mortality. Objective: this study aimed to determine the motives of bariatric surgeries among Saudi adults in Al-Madinah and to assess their beliefs and knowledge toward surgical intervention in treating obesity. Methods: this was an observational analytical cross-sectional study and it was carried out in Al- Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during 2018. Results: the data were collected from 406 participants. 61.8% of them were female. The mean age was 33.5 ± 9.12 and the mean of BMI of the participants was 29.89 ±8.22. The majority of the participants were married (62.6%). More than half of our respondents (80.3%) had a college-level education or higher. 51.5% were employed. 79.6% of participants tried to lose weight by traditional methods. The majority of the participants (77.6%) did not undergo weight loss surgery. 75% of the respondents who did the surgery reported that health problem was the most reason motivated them to do the surgery. 364 (90.8%) of the participants believed that bariatric surgeries were effective in treating of obesity. However, 67.8% of the participants didn’t prefer the surgery over traditional methods to lose weight. The majority of the respondents (77.6%) believed that bariatric surgery was not the best choice to lose weight and 95% of the participants believed that bariatric surgeries had complications. Conclusion: health problem is the major motive for our population to do bariatric surgery.

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