Body Image, Psychosocial Functioning, and Personality: How Different Are Adolescents and Young Adults Applying for Plastic Surgery?

Abstract

This study addressed three questions: (1) Do adolescents undergoing plastic surgery have a realistic view of their body? (2) How urgent is the psychosocial need of adolescents to undergo plastic surgery? (3) Which relations exist between bodily attitudes and psychosocial functioning and personality? From 1995 to 1997, 184 plastic surgical patients aged 12 to 22, and a comparison group of 684 adolescents and young adults from the general population aged 12 to 22 years, and their parents, were interviewed and completed questionnaires and standardised rating scales. Adolescents accepted for plastic surgery had realistic appearance attitudes and were psychologically healthy overall. Patients were equally satisfied with their overall appearance as the comparison group, but more dissatisfied with the specific body parts concerned for operation, especially when undergoing corrective operations. Patients had measurable appearance-related psychosocial problems. Patient boys reported less self-confidence on social areas than all other groups. There were very few patient-comparison group differences in correlations between bodily and psychosocial variables, indicating that bodily attitudes and satisfaction are not differentially related to psychosocial functioning and self-perception in patients than in peers. We concluded that adolescents accepted for plastic surgery have considerable appearance-related psychosocial problems, patients in the corrective group reporting more so than in the reconstructive group. Plastic surgeons may assume that these adolescents in general have a realistic attitude towards their appearance. are psychologically healthy, and are mainly dissatisfied about the body parts concerned for operation. corrective patients more so than reconstructive patients. Introverted patients may need more attention from plastic surgeons during the psychosocial assessment.

Psychosocial Functioning after Discontinuation of Long-Term Growth Hormone Treatment in Girls with Turner Syndrome

“…From a randomly selected population sample from three municipalities in the Netherlands (n = 600, response rate 56%), only the females were selected for comparison (n = 359) [8]. …”

“…Behavioral problems were measured by 3-point scale standardized questionnaires from Achenbach, translated and validated in the Dutch language [8, 10, 11]. For girls aged between 12 and 18 years, the 119-item Youth Self-Report (YSR; filled in by child) [12, 13] was used.…”

“…As both questionnaires were constructed in a similar way, results from three scales could be combined for analysis (Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problem score). To allow combination of test scales (YSR/YASR), z-scores were constructed using the Population sample data as reference [8]. A higher test z-score indicated more problem behavior.…”

“…The American Child Depression Inventory was designed to measure depressive thoughts and feelings in a child population and was designed by Kovacs [17]. Factor analysis of the Dutch version of the 27-item (3-point scales) ‘Gevoelens en Gedachten vragenlijst’ produced one scale, the ‘Total depression scale score’ (α = 0.86) [8]. A higher score indicated more depressive thoughts and feelings.…”

“…‘Do you think people avoid you because of your appearance?’), and ‘Physical contact’ (α = 0.77; e.g. ‘In general, how much do you like touching people?’) [8]. High test scores indicated positive bodily attitudes.…”