Two measures of health-related quality of life in morbid obesity.

OBJECTIVE To compare health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures in obese presurgery patients with and without binge-eating disorder (BED) and to investigate the relationship between a generic [short form-36 (SF-36)] and a disease-specific HRQOL measure [Impact of Weight on Quality of Life Questionnaire (IWQOL)] and measures of eating-related and general psychopathology. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES One hundred ten patients ages 19 to 62 years with a mean body mass index of 48.4 +/- 8.3 kg/m(2) who were evaluated for gastric bypass surgery were asked to fill out questionnaires assessing eating-related and general psychopathology (depression, self-esteem), as well as the two HRQOL questionnaires. BED was assessed by self-report. RESULTS Nineteen (17.3%) patients met criteria for BED. Significant differences between patients with and without BED were found for four of the eight subscales of the SF-36-with effect sizes ranging from 0.44 to 0.75-and for the total score and three of the five subscales of the IWQOL-Lite-with effect sizes from 0.57 to 0.74. The mental composite score of the SF-36 as well as the IWQOL total score correlated significantly with the measures of psychopathology. DISCUSSION This is the first study comparing the results of HRQOL measures in morbidly obese presurgery patients with and without BED. The results indicate that BED has a profound negative impact on HRQOL that exceeds the influence of obesity. Both HRQOL measures were able to reliably discriminate between patients with and without BED. Depression and self-esteem influenced HRQOL in a similar way as binge eating.