Psychological Interventions and Bariatric Surgery among People with Clinically Severe Obesity—A Systematic Review with Bayesian Meta-Analysis

Aim: To assess the effectiveness of perioperative psychological interventions provided to patients with clinically severe obesity undergoing bariatric surgery regarding weight loss, BMI, quality of life, and psychosocial health using the Bayesian approach. Methods: We considered randomised trials that assessed the beneficial and harmful effects of perioperative psychological interventions in people with clinically severe obesity undergoing bariatric surgery. We searched four data sources from inception to 3 October 2021. The authors independently selected studies for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias. We conducted a meta-analysis using a Bayesian approach. PROSPERO: CRD42017077724. Results: Of 13,355 identified records, we included nine studies (published in 27 papers with 1060 participants (365 males; 693 females, 2 people with missing data)). Perioperative psychological interventions may provide little or no benefit for BMI (the last reported follow-up: MD [95% credible intervals] = −0.58 [−1.32, 0.15]; BF(01) = 0.65; 7 studies; very low certainty of evidence) and weight loss (the last reported follow-up: MD = −0.50 [−2.21, 0.77]; BF(01) = 1.24, 9 studies, very low certainty of evidence). Regarding psychosocial outcomes, the direction of the effect was mainly inconsistent, and the certainty of the evidence was low to very low. Conclusions: Evidence is anecdotal according to Bayesian factors and uncertain whether perioperative psychological interventions may affect weight-related and psychosocial outcomes in people with clinically severe obesity undergoing bariatric surgery. As the results are ambiguous, we suggest conducting more high-quality studies in the field to estimate the true effect, its direction, and improve confidence in the body of evidence.