Skip to main content

Social Media Increases Plastic, Reconstructive Surgery Patient Empowerment

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on April 15, 2024.

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 15, 2024 -- For patients undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery (PRS), social media seems to have a positive impact on patient empowerment, according to a study published in the April issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

JacqueLyn R. Kinney, M.D., from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study to examine how social media sites influence levels of PRS patient empowerment using the modified Cyber Info-Decisional Empowerment Scale (CIDES) survey, which was distributed to U.S. adults. Data were included from 473 survey responses.

Participants were classified based on their surgical history: cosmetic, reconstructive, cosmetic and reconstructive, or non-PRS (39.5, 22.6, 7.6, and 30.2 percent, respectively). The researchers found that depending on the online resources used, increased empowerment was seen. Significantly greater empowerment was seen in six of seven CIDES categories in association with social media use. Facebook was associated with higher empowerment of the social media platforms in three of seven CIDES categories.

"PRS patients who use social media have higher levels of empowerment, which reflect better patient decision-making and autonomy when consulting with their plastic surgeon," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

American College of Surgeons, Oct. 19-22

The annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons was held this year from Oct. 19 to 22 in San Francisco and attracted participants from around the world, including...

Clinicians Often Fail to Rescue Women With Complications After High-Risk Surgery

TUESDAY, Oct. 29, 2024 -- Clinicians fail to rescue female patients with complications after high-risk vascular and cardiac surgeries more often than male patients, according to a...

Trends in Obesity Treatment Show Surge in GLP-1 RAs, Drop in Surgeries

TUESDAY, Oct. 29, 2024 -- Among privately insured patients, there was a doubling in the use of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) as antiobesity treatment from...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.