Patient Experience in Bariatric Surgery: Definition of New Indicators

Given the growing importance of placing the patient at the heart of care evaluation, the use of patient questionnaires such as Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMS) or Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) has become widespread in recent years. PROMS assess the outcomes of care, whereas PREMS assess the patient's experience of care. However, these tools only imperfectly reflect the patient's experience and only answer specific questions: satisfaction, pain management, waiting times, etc. Other initiatives, such as the patient tracer (https://www.has-sante.fr/jcms/c_2807803/fr/patient-traceur), involve interviewing patients and, where appropriate, their relatives about their care by asking them specific questions about their care, such as the information they have received, the therapeutic workshops they have attended, etc. However, all these attempts to put the patient at the centre of the evaluation of the quality of care are still based on quality questions or indicators defined a priori by healthcare professionals and the health authorities.

Patients undergoing bariatric surgery will undergo major surgery that will have an impact on their subsequent quality of life. Preparing for this surgery is a lengthy process, involving various forms of support: psychological, nutritional, physical activity, and so on. Exploring patients' experiences in depth, based on their account of their care experience, can enable carers to better understand and apprehend this type of journey from a perspective closer to that of the patient.

The narrative inquiry method enables patients' unique experiences to be collected and co-constructed with the help of interviewers. In addition, this qualitative approach focuses not only on the experience of individuals, but also on the social and cultural aspects in which they are embedded, enabling a more global and less reductive approach to the patient experience.