PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jennifer Logue
AU  - Sally Stewart
AU  - Jane Munro
AU  - Julie Bruce
AU  - Eleanor Grieve
AU  - Mike Lean
AU  - Robert S Lindsay
AU  - Duff Bruce
AU  - Abdulmajid Ali
AU  - Andrew Briggs
AU  - Naveed Sattar
AU  - Ian Ford
TI  - SurgiCal Obesity Treatment Study (SCOTS): protocol for a national prospective cohort study of patients undergoing bariatric surgery in Scotland
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008106
DP  - 2015 May 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e008106
VI  - 5
IP  - 5
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/5/e008106.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/5/e008106.full
SO  - BMJ Open2015 May 01; 5
AB  - Introduction The efficacy of bariatric surgery for large-scale, long-term weight loss is well established. However, many questions remain over the continual benefits and cost-effectiveness of that weight loss for overall health, particularly when accounting for potential complications and adverse events of surgery. Health research institutes in the UK and the USA have called for high-quality longitudinal cohort studies of patients undergoing bariatric surgery, assessing outcomes such as surgical complications, mortality, diabetes remission, microvascular complications, cardiovascular events, mental health, cost and healthcare use.Methods and analysis SurgiCal Obesity Treatment Study (SCOTS) is a national, prospective, observational, cohort study of patients undergoing primary bariatric surgical procedures in Scotland. This study aims to recruit 2000 patients and conduct a follow-up for 10 years postbariatric surgery using multiple data collection methods: surgeon-recorded data, electronic health record linkage, and patient-reported outcome measures. Outcomes measured will include: mortality, weight change, diabetes, surgical, cardiovascular, cancer, behavioural, reproductive/urological and nutritional variables. Healthcare utilisation and economic productivity will be collected to inform cost-effectiveness analysis.Ethics and dissemination The study has received a favourable ethical opinion from the West of Scotland Research Ethics committee. All publications arising from this cohort study will be published in open-access peer-reviewed journals. All SCOTS investigators (all members of the research team at every recruiting site) will have the ability to propose research suggestions and potential publications using SCOTS data; a publications committee will approve all requests for use of SCOTS data and propose writing committees and timelines. Lay-person summaries of all research findings will be published simultaneously on the SCOTS website (http://www.scotsurgeystudy.org.uk).