Stigma, body image, and quality of life in women seeking orthognathic surgery.
BACKGROUND
Orthognathic surgery has been increasingly performed in the authors' country. To ascertain the increased satisfaction that comes with surgery, it is necessary to evaluate the patient's motivation for surgery.


METHODS
Seventy-four female patients were evaluated before surgery. The control group consisted of 124 female patients. All participants completed the measures of perception of appearance, body image, stigma, and quality of life on an individual basis. These measures were tested, with satisfactory reliability and validity.


RESULTS
Patients scored significantly lower than the control group on the measures for perception of appearance, stigma of surgery, and quality of life, but higher on appearance orientation and stigma of deformity. Correlation analyses revealed various patterns of intercorrelations of subscales of stigma and body image in both groups. Regression analysis yielded three significant predictors for surgery motivation (i.e., satisfaction of facial areas, stigma of surgery, and appearance orientation), altogether accounting for 46.2 percent of the total variance.


CONCLUSIONS
Given the broadly known importance of body image in seeking surgery, it may be equally important to take stigma into consideration of the patient's motivation. Further investigations are needed.
Lee
Li-Wei
LW
Taipei and Taoyuan, Taiwan From the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, National Taiwan University; Center of General Education, Chang Gung University; and Craniofacial Center and Department of Child Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
Chen
Sue-Huei
SH
Yu
Chung-Chih
CC
Lo
Lun-Jou
LJ
Lee
Sheau-Rong
SR
Chen
Yu-Ray
YR
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004954:Esthetics / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008310:Malocclusion / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology / Q000601:surgery*; D008334:Mandible / Q000601:surgery; D009970:Orthodontics / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life; D012649:Self Concept; D012737:Sex Factors