Enhancing affected person empowerment in cosmetic surgery by way of social media

For sufferers contemplating or present process plastic and reconstructive surgical procedure (PRS) procedures, utilizing social media to collect data and reply questions can improve affected person empowerment – doubtlessly resulting in elevated autonomy and higher decision-making, reviews a examine within the April difficulty of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgical procedure^®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is revealed within the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. 

Our examine means that connecting to social media is related to significant will increase in empowerment for PRS sufferers, and will have optimistic results on patient-centered decision-making.”

Samuel J. Lin, MD, MBA, ASPS Member Surgeon of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Heart and Harvard Medical College, Boston

Social media use linked to greater empowerment scores 

The researchers carried out a web based survey utilizing Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. Of 473 respondents, about 70% had undergone some kind of PRS: beauty in 40%, reconstructive in 23%, and each beauty and reconstructive in eight %. A modified model of the Cyber Information-Decisional Empowerment Scale (CIDES) was used to discover assoiciations between social media and affected person empowerment. 

About three-fourths of sufferers reported looking for cosmetic surgery data on-line at a while throughout their PRS expertise. Relying on the assets used, sufferers who obtained data on-line had greater scores for affected person empowerment. 

Specifically, social media customers scored greater on six out of seven CIDES classes: affected person information; the choice to seek the advice of with a plastic surgeon and questions in the course of the session; and remedy decision-making, consciousness of remedy selections, and consciousness of different remedy choices. 

In comparison with these utilizing different social media platforms, Fb customers had greater scores in sure classes: determination to seek the advice of, questions throughout session, and consciousness of different remedy choices. RealSelf, a plastic surgery-focused platform, was additionally related to elevated empowerment in remedy choices. 

Plastic surgeons urged to ‘have interaction with and contribute to’ social media 

Social media use had a better impression on empowerment for sufferers present process beauty breast surgical procedure, and for reconstructive procedures on the stomach/trunk or hand. Most sufferers mentioned that they acquired useful data from their plastic surgeon’s workplace, though some discovered this data troublesome to learn. 

“As medical care shifts towards a mannequin of patient-centered decision-making, it is essential to know how on-line data, and social media particularly, impacts affected person empowerment,” says Dr. Lin. “Our findings recommend that social media could be a great tool to advertise affected person autonomy and decision-making amongst sufferers contemplating PRS procedures.” Earlier research recommend that affected person empowerment is related to improved healthcare experiences and outcomes. 

Social media platforms equivalent to Fb and RealSelf supply a “forum-like interface” for sufferers to put up questions and skim opinions from different sufferers and physicians, offering a “sense of neighborhood or connection.” Dr. Lin provides: “Plastic surgeons can contribute to affected person empowerment by partaking with and contributing to social media platforms, offering data based mostly on evidence-based care, and guaranteeing that the knowledge supplied by their workplace is readable and comprehensible.”