Psychological Analysis of Non-surgical Rhinoplasty

The aim of this study is to analyze the psychological outcomes for patients undergoing non-surgical correction of nasal defects using injections of cross-linked hyaluronic acid. We assessed changes in the subjective perception of nasal appearance after non-surgical rhinoplasty using the Rhinoplasty Outcomes Evaluation (ROE) questionnaire, which is validated and widely used in the literature. One hundred adult subjects without prior history of surgical or non-surgical rhinoplasty underwent non-surgical recontouring using the hyaluronic acid filler from December 2016 to December 2018. The points of inoculation have been standardized by the authors and are divided according to the aesthetic subunits of the nose. A final 74 patients (65 females and 9 males) completed a one-year follow-up and were included in the present study. The ROE questionnaire consists of six questions and assesses the way patients perceive the appearance of their nose and the way they think the people around them view the appearance of their nose. The results of each question were analyzed for each patient, comparing the preoperative results over a 12-month time-frame. Candidates for rhinoplasty, either medical or surgical, are among the most difficult to treat and, interestingly, there is substantial literature showing that among these patients, there is a higher rate of psychiatric disorders. Many of these patients seek aesthetic surgery and are often dissatisfied with the outcome of their surgery. The authors suggest that the use of ROE is not only a valid method of assessing patient satisfaction, but it could also be used as a tool to highlight some of the psychological characteristics of patients long before performing any treatment and could help identify potentially problematic patients.

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