Epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for psychosocial problems in patients and families affected by non-intellectually impairing craniofacial malformation conditions: a systematic review protocol of qualitative data

Physical attractiveness or unattractiveness wields a tremendous impact on the social and psychological components of life. Many individuals with facial deformities are treated more negatively than normal individuals, which may affect their self-image, quality of life, self-esteem, interpersonal encounters, and ultimately, success in life. Malformations that do not create physiological problems and whose major health impact is to degrade physical attractiveness and engender psychosocial consequences are insufficiently understood and not considered functional problems by medical insurance companies.

As part of a clinical practice guideline development process for psychosocial concerns in Freeman-Burian syndrome, manuscripts describing psychosocial considerations related to the presence of non-intellectually impairing craniofacial malformation conditions or associated clinical activities are sought, especially focusing on epidemiology, prevention, symptoms, diagnoses, severity, timing, treatment, consequences, and outcomes. All published papers on this topic are considered in searching PubMed, OVID MEDLINE, and CINAHL Complete and again before final analyses. The results will be written descriptively to be practically useful and structured around the type or timing of psychosocial problems or consequences described or target population characteristics. No meta-analysis is planned.

Because the quality of research on psychosocial problems in craniofacial malformation conditions is known to be fraught with methodological problems, inconsistencies, and considerable knowledge gaps, we anticipate difficulties, which may limit the review questions able to be answered. We hope to produce a survey relevant to all non-intellectually impaired craniofacially deformed patients and their families and outline knowledge gaps and prioritise areas for clinical investigation.