Self-esteem in Preoperative Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass White Women and Their Postoperative Counterparts

Interventions exist to counter obesity, yet only gastric bypass surgery has shown the possibility of producing significant long-term weight loss results. Few studies have examined the psychological affects of the surgical procedure, especially on the hierarchical trait of self-esteem. This study used quantitative methodology to address issues of self-esteem and the effect Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass surgery has on adult morbidly obese women. The objective was to examine hierarchical self-esteem in preoperative RYGB morbidly obese White women and their two-or-more-years postoperative counterparts. Research questions focused on discovering if a significant difference between groups existed in physical, social, emotional, performance, and global self-esteem. The researcher hypothesized that the postoperative group would positively significantly differ in social, physical, performance, and global self-esteem but not differ in emotional self-esteem. Empirical data was collected with the Customized Version of the Modified Self-Rating Scale and analyzed through multiple variance analysis. The analysis found a significant difference between groups existed in physical, social, emotional, performance, and global self-esteem.