Why Are Symptom Status and Functional Status Essential Outcomes for Obesity Disease Management?
Because obesity involves both biologic and behavioral etiologies and management that is largely carried out on a daily basis by the patient, symptom status and functional status provide important complements to traditional clinical outcomes measures— clinical events, biologic measures, and mortality. How patients feel—symptom status—and what they do—functional status—are highly valued by patients, their families, and purchasers of health care (19). Symptom status and functional status measures describe or characterize what the patient experiences as a result of obesity and its treatment. They are important because they are closely related to how people with obesity get through life each day. Obesity therapeutic interventions increasingly focus on improving patient function and well-being, in addition to short-term weight loss, decreased adverse clinical events, and lower mortality. Both symptom status and functional status are also related to adherence with other therapeutic interventi
