Volume 24, Issue 106, November - December, 2020

The public view of media impact on seeking cosmetic surgeries in Saudi Arabia: A cross sectional study

Wejdan Suwayyid¹, Maha Alshbini², Saad Alotaibi³, Lura Habib⁴, Salman Alotaibi⁵, Roayad Abuaziz⁶, Yasser Alkubaisy^7♦

¹MBBS, Almareefa University College of medicine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
²MBBS, Northern border University College of medicine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
³MBBS, College of medicine in Dawadmi-Shaqra University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
⁴MBBS, Taif University College of medicine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
⁵MBBS, College of medicine in Dawadmi-Shaqra University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
⁶MBBS, Alfaisal University College of medicine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
⁷Consultant, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, ENT Department, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

^♦Corresponding author
Consultant, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, ENT Department, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Email: Drkubaisy@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Background: Social media is gaining popularity worldwide as being a method used to advertise for cosmetic treatments, Because of addiction to social media is currently a common problem worldwide. The number of individuals in the lookout for cosmetic procedures has increased around the world in the past few years. Cosmetic procedures are considered to be one of the most frequently performed procedures in the medical field. Objective: To evaluate the effect of social media on the Saudi population to undergo a cosmetic procedure to correlate the effect of social media with socio-demographic factors. Methods: We evaluate 911 Saudi females and males from the various age groups in different regions in Saudi Arabia using an electronic questionnaire. Results: Out of the 911 participants, 24.9% were male while 75.1% were females.13% had a history of plastic surgery. 38.6% of the participants intended to undergo plastic surgery. 30.7% reported that advertisements of plastic surgeons themselves had an effect on their desire for cosmetic intervention. 29.5% said that watching cosmetic TV programs affected their desire for cosmetic intervention whether surgical or otherwise. 44.1% of the participants said that before and after pictures on social media had an effect on their desire for cosmetic intervention. Lastly, 36.3 % of the participants said that the desire to appear better in pictures and selfies motivated them to conduct cosmetic intervention. Conclusion: This study aimed to determine the effect of social media on undergoing cosmetic procedures. The results have shown that the majority of the respondents were positively affected, mainly by comparing the before and after cosmetic procedure pictures, secondly by the desire to appear better in pictures and selfies, thirdly and most importantly is the surgeon’s advertisements and watching cosmetic TV shows; as it should be noted that all those who were affected by the different advertisement, social media, and TV programs have previously undergone plastic surgery. Consequently, media affects the way a person is viewed by others, as well as their self-confidence, which encourages them to pursue plastic surgery.

Keywords: Plastic, social media, impact, cosmetics, procedures, apps.

Medical Science, 2020, 24(106), 4689-4697

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