Body image, psychosocial functioning, and personality: How different are adolescents and young adults applying for plastic surgery?

This study addressed three questions: (1) Do adolescents undergoing plastic surgery have a realistic view of their body? (2) How urgent is the psychos ocial need of adolescents to undergo plastic surgery? (3) Which relations e xist between bodily attitudes and psychosocial functioning and personality? From 1995 to 1997. 184 plastic surgical patients aged 12 to 22, and a comp arison group of 684 adolescents and young adults from the general populatio n aged 12 to 22 years, and their parents. were interviewed and completed qu estionnaires and standardised rating scales. Adolescents accepted for plast ic surgery had realistic appearance attitudes and were psychologically heal thy 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. T here were,,cry few patient-comparison group differences in correlations bet ween bodily and psychosocial variables, indicating that bodily attitudes an d satisfaction are not differentially related to psychosocial functioning a nd self-perception in patients than in peers. We concluded that adolescents accepted for plastic surgery have considerable appearance-related psychoso cial problems, patients in the corrective group reporting more so than in t he reconstructive group. Plastic surgeons may assume that these adolescents in general have a realistic attitude towards their appearance, are psychol ogically healthy. and are mainly dissatisfied about the body parts concerne d for operation, corrective patients more so than reconstructive patients. Introverted patients may need more attention from plastic surgeons during t he psychosocial assessment.