# IMPACT OF OBESITY ON FUNCTIONING IN SOCIETY – OQI-3, A NEW TOOL PILOT STUDY RESULTS

## TL;DR

This paper introduces OQI-3, a new questionnaire to assess how obesity affects daily life and work-related activities, validated in a small pilot study.

## Contribution

The paper presents OQI-3, a novel gender-specific questionnaire combining qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate obesity's impact on social functioning.

## Key findings

- The pilot study confirmed the internal consistency of OQI-3 with a Cronbach's α of 0.874.
- Commonly reported challenges included physical activity, walking stairs, and housework.
- Two factors were identified: functioning in a close environment and relations in the broader social environment.

## Abstract

The objective was to develop a tool enabling better understanding of obesity impact on social functioning with focus on daily functioning and work related activities.

Obesity Impact on Functioning in Society Questionnaire (OQI-3) was developed for use among adult population with obesity disease. It focuses on daily functioning, work related activities and emotions related to work environment social relations. The 3-part questionnaire combining qualitative and quantitative methods is gender specific and it was validated among 41 adult patients with obesity in Poland. The first part is a vignette examining patients' projected attitudes and emotions. The second is an open question related to daily activities mostly affected by obesity. The third part uses a Likert scale to assess the degree of difficulty in performing daily activities consisting of 11 actions taken in everyday life. Respondents select 1 of the answers on the scale to indicate the obesity influence on the mentioned activities.

The qualitative parts provided information on attitudes and emotions, where mostly negative attitudes and emotions were mentioned. The most frequently mentioned were physical activity, walking up the stairs, housework and activities related to patients' image. The quantitative part identified 2 factors (1 – relations in the further social environment, 2 – functioning in a close environment). The Likert scale was recoded for each statement as follows: 1 – 3; 2 – 1; 3 – 2; 4 – 4; 5 – 5 and Cronbach's α value was calculated confirming scale reliability. It equals 0.874 for the total of items.

The OQI-3 is innovative and combines various research techniques to verify people suffering from obesity well-being and disease impact on social functioning. The pilot study has proven its internal consistence. However the modified tool based on the pilot results should be tested and validated on a larger study group. Guidelines for results interpretation should be developed with the final instrument version.