Quality of life among Iranian adults before and after rhinoplasty

Fatemi MJ, Rajabi F, Moosavi SJ, Soltani M.

PubMed 21993575 Publisher (DOI)

What this paper says

In 75 Iranian adults surveyed before and 6 months after rhinoplasty, quality of life improved on every questionnaire, with significant gains in nasal breathing (p = 0.005), self-esteem (p = 0.002) and four of the SF-36 health subscales.

Overview

Rhinoplasty is among the most common cosmetic operations in Iran, but its effect on overall well-being there had not been measured. The authors interviewed patients with three standard questionnaires covering general health, nasal obstruction and self-esteem before surgery and again six months later.

Sections of note

Cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study, March 2009 to March 2010; 75 subjects aged 16 and over.
Questionnaires: SF-36 version 2 (general health), NOSE (nasal obstruction) and Rosenberg (self-esteem), completed with a trained interviewer.
Mean age 26.05 years (SD 7.78), median 24; female-to-male ratio 4.35 to 1.
Quality of life improved after surgery on all questionnaires.
Significant improvements: NOSE (p = 0.005), Rosenberg (p = 0.002).
SF-36 subscales with significant change: physical functioning (p = 0.047), role emotional (p = 0.01), bodily pain (p = 0.01), vitality (p = 0.05).

What it means for a patient

In this group, rhinoplasty was followed by better breathing scores, higher self-esteem and modest gains in general health measures at six months.
The patients were mostly young women; results may differ in other groups.
No control group, six-month follow-up only, and the authors condition the benefit on proper patient selection and a successful operation.

Why this paper matters

It adds patient-reported quality-of-life data from a country with a very high rhinoplasty rate. The gains in general health subscales are small and their durability past six months is not known.

Terms

Quality of life (QOL): a patient's own rating of physical, mental and social well-being.
SF-36: a 36-item general health questionnaire with eight subscales.
NOSE: the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation, a five-item breathing questionnaire.
Rosenberg questionnaire: a ten-item self-esteem scale.
Cross-sectional study: a study measuring a group at set points rather than following outcomes over years.
Subscale: one domain within a larger questionnaire, such as bodily pain.

Summary written by rhinoplasty.cc from the abstract, 2026-09-08; not medical advice. The authors' own abstract follows.

From the abstract

“Despite developments in the therapeutic field of cosmetic surgery, there is a little information about the effects of cosmetic procedures on quality of life (QOL), especially in Iran. Rhinoplasty is one of the most common cosmetic surgeries. This type of surgery has remarkable effects on physical and mental health and…”

Excerpt; the full abstract is on PubMed.