Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Bariatric surgery is a surgical procedure that changes the digestive system to promote weight loss. Although it is the recommended treatment for severe obesity, a significant proportion of patients undergoing this surgery experience suboptimal weight loss or fail to maintain the weight loss. While adjunct behavioural interventions are advised to support weight loss, weight maintenance, and overall health of bariatric surgery patients, there are no precise guidelines for these interventions. The aim of this research project is to develop an adjunct behavioural weight management intervention that is suited for bariatric surgery patients' needs. To do so, we will use a collaborative approach, seeking the knowledge of multiple stakeholders (patients, health professionals, health administrators and health researchers). The first step will be to conduct discussion groups with these stakeholders to have their opinions on what is a successful bariatric surgery process, what are the barriers to such a success, and what can facilitate this success. This will help us to make a list of potential intervention components of an adjunct behavioural intervention to bariatric surgery. The next step will be to distribute an online survey to these same stakeholders to rationalize the most pertinent components of such an intervention. Finally, the last step of this project will be to hold a meeting with bariatric surgery patients, health professionals, health administrators, and researchers to detail and refine the final set of interventions (including specific components) and their structure (considering potential barriers and facilitators) to be initially tested. This research project will lead to the development of an initial behavioral intervention aimed at supporting the success of patients undergoing bariatric surgery.