Is there a relationship between morbid obesity and depression

Introduction A considerable proportion of patients with morbid obesity require treatment with antidepressants. Objectives The aim of this study is to determine the incidence of patients who are in antidepressant treatment and identify risk factors for the need of this treatment in patients with morbid obesity. Materials and methods Retrospective cohort study of 292 patients with morbid obesity who underwent bariatric surgery at Hospital del Mar from January 2010 to November 2015. The incidence of antidepressant treatment was analyzed, and also its possible relationship with the following variables: age, sex, BMI, tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption and age of onset of obesity. Chi 2 test for categorical variables and Student t -test for quantitative variables were applied. Afterwards, a multivariate analysis was performed using logistic regression. Results The mean age is 43.1 years. Most of the patients (76.4%) are women. Seventy-seven patients (26.4%) are receiving treatment with antidepressants. There is a statistically significant relationship between age and the need of treatment with antidepressants ( P P Conclusions Despite the large number of patients in the study, there are limitations, such as being a retrospective study and not being adjusted for confounding factors. From all the variables that have been analyzed we have found that as the age of the patients increase, there is a higher number of patients that receive treatment with antidepressants.