Quality of life (QoL) and motivation for treatment: a female issue?

The Quality of Life (QoL) of overweight and obese subjects is a widely discussed topic. From numerous studies, it emerges that obese persons suffer significant damage as result of their overweight in terms of QoL with regard to their physical and psychosocial well-being, with greater incidence associated with the degree of obesity. Our study aims at evaluating the usefulness of specific psychometric tests on the “obese population” that may be effective for the overall evaluation of the patient and in identifying specific subgroups on the basis of psychometric characteristics relating to QoL and of motivation for treatment. METHODS: The study was carried out on a sample of 150 obese subjects who approached the Section of Human Nutrition of the University of Pavia requesting treatment for weight loss. The persons in the selected sample were subjected to a specialized examination during which, as well as collecting all the anamnestic information on each individual patient, they were also asked to fill out the obesity-specific ORWELL 97 (Obesity Related Well- Being) questionnaire and the DBI (Decisional Balance Inventory) questionnaire. RESULTS: An analysis of the results indicates that the female group is strongly characterized by a lower QoL, as well as by a clearly larger number of failed dieting attempts and by a strong motivation to undergo treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The evaluation of QoL and motivation for treatment in overweight and obese individuals appears to be an effective tool for better identification of the subjects and for planning the most appropriate diagnostic approach.