Psykisk hälsa och livskvalitet hos barn och ungdomar som behandlas för obesitas

Sammanfattning: Children and adolescents with obesity are at risk of developing depression, anxiety, eating disorders and a low health-related quality of life. In addition, weight-related bullying is another risk factor that can influence mental health. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the frequency of and covariation between self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety and eating disorders as well as health-related quality of life among children and adolescents (11–18 years old) with obesity. Furthermore, this study did not only intend to investigate gender and age differences, but also to examine the existence of a potential distinction regarding symptoms of mental illness between those who reported exposure to bullying and those who did not. The results showed that more than half of the sample had mental illness or low health-related quality of life, regardless of gender and age. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were not only significantly associated with each other, but also with low health-related quality of life. Additionally, low health-related quality of life covaried with symptoms of eating disorders. A gender difference was identified for emotional functioning within health-related quality of life, which indicates that girls to a greater extent experience low emotional functioning. Moreover, participants who were teased by peers tended to screen positively for eating disorders to a higher degree than the other participants. This indicates that bullying is associated with symptoms of eating disorders in this population. Overall, the results imply that children and adolescents with obesity ought to be screened for depression, anxiety and eating disorders as well as low health-related quality of life in clinical settings.