Self-efficacy and health literacy impact on outcome after bariatric surgery

Those in need for bariatric surgery must apply a wide range of skills to access health care service, communicate with health care providers, understand different options and to be engaged in a shared decision-making. Health care providers expects the individual to understand medical terms, medical jargon, and to navigate in the health care system.

Health literacy entails the knowledge, motivation, and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and take decisions in everyday life. Research has shown  association between limited health litteracy and poor postoperative recovery. Self-efficay i.e. to believe in one´s ability to handle different situations can  vary between persons. A person's self-efficay has been shown to influence hospital readmissions and the ability to change behaviors. 

The project investigates self-efficay and health literacy in group undergoing bariatric surgery. It is a longitudinal cohortbased study.  The results are linked to registry data from the Scandinavian Obesity Surgery Registry (SOReg).