Toronto Bariatric Inter-Professional Psychosocial Assessment Suitability Scale (BIPASS™)
- Technology Application
- Patientstratification for clinical trialPatient assessment
- Detailed Technology Description
- An innovative tool to assess the psychosocial statusof patients undergoing bariatric surgery
- *Abstract
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The Toronto BIPASS tool addresses a growing clinical need in obesitycare. Bariatric surgery is now recognized as a durable treatment for severeobesity; however, patients require a comprehensive assessment to identifypotential challenges for post-surgery lifestyle and diet adherence that couldinterfere with the health benefits of surgery. For many clinicians, the highrates of psychiatric co-morbidity and psychological burden in bariatric surgerycandidates have complicated pre-bariatric surgery “readiness” or “suitability”assessments. Although best practice guidelines recommend psychological orpsychiatric assessment prior to bariatric surgery to identify potentialcontraindications and readiness barriers, many programs lack sufficientresources and tools to provide timely, accurate and comprehensive assessments.
To date, there are only a few tools available to guide bariatric surgerypsychiatric and psychological assessment and none have been validated againstexpert assessment. There is a lack of interprofessionally focused tools thatcould be used across the spectrum of bariatric surgery healthcareprofessionals.
The Toronto BIPASS tool is the first of its kind. It was developedthrough an international consultation process involving psychiatrists, psychologists,social workers, dietitians, nurses and surgeons experienced in bariatricsurgery care from across the world. The BIPASS tool has growing validityevidence and the tool has established cut-offs to systematically guidesuitability assessment based on comparison with experts in pre-bariatricsurgery psychosocial assessment. The tool is an easy-to-use, interprofessionalclinical tool that can enhance psychosocial assessment before bariatric surgeryin programs struggling with determining suitability for bariatric surgery.
- *Principal Investigator
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Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam and Dr. Raed Hawa
- *Publications
- Psychosomatics2016:57:165–17 Bariatric Interprofessional Psychosocial Assessment SuitabilityScale: Evaluating A New Clinical Assessment Tool for Bariatric SurgeryCandidates
- Country/Region
- USA
