Evaluation of psychological interview before prominent ear reconstruction: Three cases report

Abstract

Medical and mental health professionals have long been interested in understanding both the motivations for seeking a change in physical appearance as well as the psychological outcomes of cosmetic surgery. By time to time researchers began to incorporate standardized psychometric tests and psychiatric evaluation into their studies. Psychiatrists have studied the personality characteristics and psychological state of these patients with the hope of identifying patients who may be psychologically inappropriate for surgery or those who are likely to be dissatisfied with a technically successful surgical outcome. There were some degree of congruence in the factors that appeared to be associated with poor outcome, demographic factors like being male, younger age, psychological/psychiatric factors such as history of depression or anxiety, dysmorphophobia, personality disorder as narcissistic or borderline, previous surgical procedure with which the patient was dissatisfied and minimal deformity. As a cosmetic surgery, prominent ear deformity is the most common abnormality of the external ear. We have used both clinical interview and psychometric assessments in three cases who want to go surgery because of their prominent ear. Two of the cases have used cyanoacrylate adhesive to their postauricular skin for camouflage of their prominent ear deformity. We have evaluated the patients’ psychiatric state with psychosocial viewpoint of the deformity.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.