Summary
Background
Social media plays an important role in connecting patients and plastic surgeons.
We utilized patient inquiries regarding mastopexy from an online social media site
to determine the most prevalent patient concerns, while employing a machine-learning
algorithm to generate the questions representative of the dataset.
Objective
This data allow plastic surgeons to better tailor their preoperative consultations
to address common concerns, set realistic expectations, and improve overall satisfaction.
Methods
A total of 2,011 inquiries from the mastopexy section of Realself.com were obtained
using an open-source web crawler. Each inquiry was manually categorized as preoperative
or postoperative and classified into subcategories based upon the free text entry.
Lastly, questions were analyzed using machine learning to determine ten questions
most representative of the inquiry pool.
Results
Of the 2,011 inquiries analyzed, 52.91% were preoperative and 47.09% were postoperative.
Most preoperative questions asked about procedure eligibility (309, 29.04%), surgical
techniques and logistics (260, 24.44%), and the best type of breast lift for the user
(259, 24.34%). Among postoperative questions, questions regarding appearance were
the most common (491, 51.85%), followed by symptoms after surgery (197, 19.75%) and
behavior allowed/disallowed (145, 15.31%). Appearance was further subcategorized with
the most common categories being appearance of the nipple (98, 19.86%), skin discoloration
(88, 17.92%), and scarring (74, 15.07%).
Conclusion
By utilizing the data that social media websites, like Realself.com, provide, plastic
surgeons can better understand common patient concerns. This data aid in optimizing
the preoperative consultation process to address the common concerns, recalibrate
unrealistic expectations, and improve overall satisfaction.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 10, 2022
Accepted:
October 4,
2022
Received:
March 23,
2022
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons.
