Long term patient experiences after bariatric and metabolic surgery: A phenomenological study

Objective: This study conducted to determine the patients' long-term experience who underwent bariatric and metabolic surgery. Method: The research is qualitative research with phenomenological design. In the study, 16 volunteered participants who had at least 5 years over the bariatric and metabolic surgery interviewed with snowball sampling technique. Data collected with a semi-structured in-depth interview method. The collected data were analyzed through content analysis, descriptive analysis, thematic analysis and, metaphors. Results: In the study, 10 of the participants were female and 6 of the participants male. One of the participants who had gastric band surgery and the others underwent sleeve gastrectomy. As a result of the content analysis to the data: four main themes as ''feelings and thoughts'', ''gains'', ''operation difficulties'' and "process journey" and 28 sub-themes were reached. Conclusion: These individuals' who have experienced bariatric and metabolic surgery are; post-operative emotions and thoughts, post-surgical gains, difficulties after surgery, post-operative journey process. These themes, which includes both negative and positive experiences, provide information about the post-surgical process of individuals. Keywords: Bariatric surgery, metabolic surgery, long-term patient experiences