Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Open Access

Abstract

One common misperception about weight management is that bariatric surgery, dietary management and pharmacological treatment “cure” obesity and automatically lead to the behavioural changes which are needed to maintain weight loss, that is to say, some patients might think that transient weight loss will automatically become permanent. The self-regulation theory suggests that the beliefs a patient hold about his or her own illness determines how he or she will deal with it. Illness beliefs can be assessed through the revised illness perception questionnaire (IPQ-R), a non-specific illness questionnaire. In a previous work, we made an obesity-specific version and a cross cultural-adaptation of the IPQ-R to Spansih language, however, its psychometric properties remain to be studied. The present work aims at assessing construct validity and reliability of the Spanish language version of the IPQ-R in patients with obesity. Construct validity refers to the degree to which the questionnaire items actually measure different types of beliefs and not other constructs. Whereas Chronbach’s alfa index of reliability refers to the degree to which the test items are correlated with one another (internal consistency). Our study involves applying the questionnaire to 700 Mexicans with obesity (IMC>30). Having a valid and reliable instrument to measure patients’ personal models of obesity might be useful for ensuring patient-health provider communication, guaranteeing comprenhension of treatment implications by patients, identifying misperceptions that will need to be corrected and even help predict patient engagement and behaviour changes.

Biography

Claudia Chavez-Murguia is a Mexican Dietitian who has been working for seven years with bariatric surgery patients. She also works as an External Researcher for the Hospital Regional ISSEMyM Tlalnepantla in Mexico. She holds a Specialist degree in Obesity and Comorbidities from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, a Master’s in Applied Nutrition from the same university and a Master’s of Science in Diabetes from The University of Warwick in the UK.

Email: clauchm_nutr@hotmail.com