The Public Awareness of Protruding Ears and Its Management in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Protruding ears are a well-known auricular deformity characterized by dominant autosomal inheritance A corrective surgery for protruding ears was developed with positive postoperative outcome. Currently, there has been no research conducted in Saudi Arabia to assess the public's awareness of protruding ears and its management. Materials and Methods: This observational cross-sectional study of 1002 participants distributed through electronic questionnaire in the Arabic language. By taking advantage of social media, the study represents the population in different regions. It was used to estimate the awareness of protruding ears among the public in Saudi Arabia. Results: 42.7% of the participants were aware of protruding ears. The most common sources of awareness were the Internet (37.4%), social media (33.2%), and brochures/scientific journals (17.6%). Awareness about protruding ears was observed more among participants working in a medical field than those working in a nonmedical field (58.9% vs. 34.6%, P < 0.001). Most of the participants who were aware of the protruding ears (70.6%) were aware of the cosmetic surgery option to repair protruding ears. The Internet (41.3%) and social media (37.1%) were the most reported sources of hearing about cosmetic surgery for repair of protruding ears. The majority of who had heard of the cosmetic surgery were working in the medical field (82.3%). Conclusions: Our study is the first to demonstrate the public awareness about protruding ears and its management. The results showed that there is a lack of awareness about the disorder and its management in Saudi Arabia. We recommend increasing the efforts to raise the awareness in the population.