Comparison of Self‐Esteem Status in Aesthetic and Functional Rhinoplasty Patients

Abstract

Objectives: Self-esteem is one’s attitude toward oneself. It is one of the most important psychological aspects of rhinoplasty. Some findings indicate the improvement of patient self-esteem after the operation. The aim of this study was to compare self-esteem in patients seeking aesthetic or functional rhinoplasty. Methods: A total of 45 patients ranging in age from 17 to 36 filled out the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) over a 3-month period. RSES consists of 10 items measuring general self-esteem. The subjects took a validated form of RSES preoperatively. Twenty-one aesthetic surgery patients and 21 functional surgery patients had filled out the questionnaire and 3 patients had left it blank. Results: Using t-test for independent groups, the analysis of the data demonstrated that the mean self-esteem score in the aesthetic surgery group was significantly lower than that of the functional surgery group ( P < .05). Age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and educational backgrounds were analyzed as potential extraneous variables and comparative analysis of each showed no significance between the 2 groups. Cohen’s d was also calculated as a measure of effect size (ES). The value of ES measure was high ( d = 0.78). Conclusions: The findings of the present study showed that aesthetic rhinoplasty patients had lower self-esteem in comparison with functional rhinoplasty patients.