A team of researchers through a study found that patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery were at a higher risk of self-harm. The study researchers found that patients were more likely to attempt suicide or harm themselves after weight-loss surgery.

The team led by Junaid Bhatti, PhD, at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, looked at a cohort of 8,800 patients for three years. They tracked patients before and after they had surgery to lose weight.

During the first three years after surgery, 111 patients received emergency care for self-inflicted injuries, noted the researchers. On the other hand, they found that the risk of such emergencies was 54% higher after the patients underwent surgeries.

Dr. Amir Ghaferi, author of an editorial accompanying the study, said that most of the incidents of self-inflicted harm were reported one to three years after bariatric surgeries. This suggested that patients might need more long-term behavioral health care than they have been getting.

"Unfortunately, long-term postoperative follow-up for bariatric patients is not ideal. This study should not dissuade patients with mental-health problems from seeking bariatric surgery", said Ghaferi.

Instead, it should encourage health-care providers to target these patients for improved follow-up care, he said.

The researchers, during the study, found that almost three in four of the self-inflicted injuries were identified as intentional drug overdoses.

The researchers noted that most of the times, patients who harmed themselves were diagnosed with a mental-health disorder at some point in the five years preceding surgery.

The only limitation of the study was that it used billing data to identify drug overdoses, which might not be an accurate indicator of whether the act was intentional or accidental, said the authors.

The study "underscores the unique vulnerability of patients undergoing bariatric surgery and forces us to look closely at why suicide rates are more than 4 times higher in these patients than the general population," wrote Amir Ghaferi, MD, and Carol Lindsay-Westphal, PhD, both at the University of Michigan, wrote in an accompanying editorial. "Bariatric surgery is more than just an operation -- it is time we recognize and treat it is as such."