Impact of Cosmetic Facial Surgery on Satisfaction With Appearance and Quality of Life

Abstract

To assess perioperative quality-of-life (QOL) changes in a facial plastic surgery patient population and to ascertain factors determinative of QOL changes. A notable paucity of objective scientific measurements of QOL exists within the facial plastic surgery literature.Methods: A 3-year prospective cohort study. The patient population, which comprised a consecutive series of patients 16 years or older, undergoing cosmetic nasal or facial surgery, was obtained from the senior author's (P.A.A.) private surgical practice. All patients presenting for surgery were offered participation. The main outcome measure was the 59-item Derriford Appearance Scale (DAS59), a valid and reliable instrument assessing psychological distress associated with self-consciousness of facial appearance. Three patient score subgroupings were established: group 1, the DAS59 scores for all patients; group 2, the DAS59 score according to sex; and group 3, the DAS59 score according to the main surgical procedure. Surveys were administered to eligible patients at the final preoperative clinic visit and at 3 months after surgery. Data from the casecontrol groups were analyzed by a blinded statistician with appropriate t tests.Results: A total of 93 patients were enrolled with a 100% response rate (82 females [88%] and 11 males [12%]). The most common procedures were rhinoplasty (49%) and surgery for the aging face (51%). Marked differences in perioperative QOL were noted across all DAS59 domains for group 1 and for all females in group 2. Male patients in group 2 analysis experienced QOL improvement only from DAS59 domain 2 (General Self-consciousness of Facial Appearance). Rhinoplasty and surgery for the aging face improved patients' QOL but differed with respect to which DAS59 domains were affected.Conclusions: Quality of life was enhanced by facial plastic surgery in this patient population. Male and female patients seem to have different needs to be met from facial cosmetic surgery and correspondingly different areas of improvement in QOL. Rhinoplasty and surgery for the aging face act on different domains of QOL.

Quality of Life Among Iranian Adults Before and After Rhinoplasty

“…A study by Hellings et al [26] indicated that rhinoplasty caused an increase in personal satisfaction. Similar to our study, a study by Litner et al [27] showed that rhinoplasty caused an increase in QOL.…”

Crooked nose: outcome evaluations in rhinoplasty

“…One of the main success factors for surgery is the patient's satisfaction after the procedure. Recently, many review papers were carried out in order to select a tool capable of measuring and analyzing patient satisfaction in the post-op [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Alssarraf et al created and validated the ROE Questionnaire, a tool of easy and fast application, useful to assess different types of patients, approaches and surgical techniques 17,19,22 .…”

“…The assessment of the intervention's final result was not very much studied under the patient's viewpoint, and such analysis is very important because patient satisfaction is the prevailing factor for surgical success [13][14][15][16][17] . In the recent decade, numerous have been the papers published in order to validate a reliable questionnaire to be employed in patients submitted to cosmetic surgery, with the goal of measuring patient satisfaction after the procedure [17][18][19][20][21][22] . Some instruments, such as questionnaires, which assess quality of life and self-image have become a gold standard and came to replace the simplistic way used to ask the patient whether or not he/she had noticed any improvement after surgery 23,24 .…”

Ethical Considerations on Case Reports and Analysis of Quality of Life in Patients with Cosmetic Rhinoplasty

“…In fact, the last decade has seen an explosion of interest in tools for assessing quality of life as a surrogate measure of overall benefit from health interventions. This interest has extended recently to the cosmetic surgery population (13). A series of measures related to health QOL (quality of life) is now available.…”