Content area
Full text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Introduction
Cosmetic surgery has become widespread in many countries. In the USA alone, more than 1.5 million cosmetic surgical procedures were conducted and over 10 million non-surgical cosmetic procedures were performed in 2009 (American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2010). Cosmetic surgery is, by definition, surgery that is not medically necessary but is conducted primarily to enhance appearance (Nahai, 2009). Given the financial costs, the potential risks to patients and the medical resources allocated to such procedures, information is warranted about the characteristics of patients who choose to undergo cosmetic surgery and the psychological and mental health effects of such surgery.
Research examining patient characteristics prior to cosmetic surgery has shown that patients demonstrate greater dissatisfaction with the specific body feature considered for cosmetic surgery than non-patients (Pertschuk et al. 1998; Sarwer et al. 1998; Didie & Sarwer, 2003), thereby indicating that patients' motivation to undergo cosmetic surgery is to improve specific body features. However, the literature provides mixed findings regarding the notion that patients seek cosmetic surgery to increase appearance in general; some studies have shown that prospective patients are more dissatisfied with their overall appearance than comparison groups (von Soest et al. 2006), whereas others have found no such difference (Pertschuk et al. 1998; Sarwer et al. 1998; Didie & Sarwer, 2003). Because of conflicting findings and methodological limitations (Sarwer et al. 2004), studies to date have not provided any firm conclusion as to whether cosmetic surgery patients have a higher frequency of mental health problems prior to surgery compared with the average population. However, research does provide some preliminary signs that several indicators of mental health problems are more frequent in prospective patients than in the population at large (Sarwer et al. 2004).
With regard to the psychological and mental health effects of cosmetic surgery, several limitations of the research examining the issue have been highlighted (Cook et al. 2006). One major limitation is short follow-up periods, typically between 6 and 12 months, in studies examining changes from pre- to post-surgery. However, three recent studies have followed cosmetic surgery patients over longer periods after surgery (Sarwer et al. 2008; Murphy et al. 2009; von Soest et al., in press). The results provide support for long-term improvements...