Rhinoplasty as a medicalized phenomenon: a 25-center survey on quality of life before and after cosmetic rhinoplasty

Overview

Cosmetic surgery rose sharply in Iran over two decades, mostly among young people seeking beauty rather than treatment. This survey set out to measure what rhinoplasty did to quality of life. Twenty-five plastic surgery clinics in Tehran were selected at random, and patients were drawn at random from them.

Sections of note

• Survey of 110 patients selected randomly from 25 randomly selected clinics.
• Only patients whose surgery was 3 to 18 months before the interview were included.
• Data came from a Likert type questionnaire covering three areas: general benefit, social support and physical health.
• Mean quality of life score was 66.54 before surgery and 61.11 after, P equal to 0.008.
• Social support and physical health scores fell, while the general benefit score rose.
• The main motivating factors reported were external, such as friends and family.
• Longer time since surgery correlated with higher satisfaction and quality of life. Level of evidence V.

What it means for a patient

• Overall quality of life in this group was lower after surgery than before, driven by social support and physical health rather than by the perceived benefit of the surgery itself.
• The authors link the physical health drop to upper airway problems after rhinoplasty, a known cause of dissatisfaction.
• Scores rose with time since surgery, so results measured within months may understate the eventual position.
• Before surgery scores were collected by recall at interview rather than at the time, which can distort comparison, and there was no untreated comparison group.

Why this paper matters

It is one of the few multi centre attempts to measure the social cost of cosmetic rhinoplasty in a country where the operation is very common. Unanswered is whether the decline persists beyond 18 months, and how much of it is caused by surgical complications rather than social response.

Terms

• Quality of life: a measured rating of how a person functions and feels in daily life.
• Medicalized: treated as a medical matter although not driven by disease.
• Likert questionnaire: a survey where answers are graded on a fixed scale.
• Social support: the help and acceptance a person receives from family and friends.
• Level of evidence V: the weakest research grade.