TUESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Facial plastic surgery improves patients' quality of life, but the effects are different for men and women, researchers report in the March/April issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.
Jason A. Litner, M.D., of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues conducted a study of 93 facial plastic surgery patients, of whom 82 (88 percent) were female. While 49 percent of patients underwent rhinoplasty, the remainder underwent surgery for the aging face. They were assessed after surgery and again three months later using the 59-item Derriford Appearance Scale (DAS59).
Overall, there were significant improvements in DAS59 scores across all the domains of the scale and for all females, the researchers report. For men, the quality-of-life improvements were only in terms of general self-consciousness of facial appearance, and the quality-of-life domains most affected by rhinoplasty and surgery for the aging face were different.
"Studies such as ours call attention to the fact that cosmetic surgery is not a superfluous 'want' but rather an answer to an important health concern that, in the patients' eyes, cuts to the very heart of social desirability. It can, therefore, have implications for psychological happiness and quality of life equivalent to or, perhaps, greater than any other medical intervention," the authors conclude.
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