What Patients Want During Follow-Up After Cosmetic Plastic Surgeries

High follow-up rates are essential to minimize bias in clinical researches. And, now, social media is widely used in various fields of plastic surgeries. However, there are no reports about its usage in the follow-up after cosmetic plastic surgeries.

The authors conducted a survey based on interview and questionnaires to get an insight into social media's usage in improving the retention among patients seeking cosmetic plastic surgery and what the patients want during the follow-up in China.

The authors reviewed the works of literature and interviewed the surgeons who have rich experiences with the follow-up procedure with patients seeking cosmetic plastic surgery. And come up with the potential elements that may influence the retention, then they recruited the participants through both the new social media and the traditional way, then gathered the participants' preferences and opinions about the elements through questionnaires. Then the data were analyzed with SPSS.

The choices which make the follow-up more convenient to attend are usually more welcomed among the participants than those making the follow-up more costly and time-consuming. However, those choices that make the patients feel less concerned are less appreciated even they are easy to practice and time-saving.

Patients have preferences during the follow-up after cosmetic plastic surgeries. Clinicians should always consider such preferences and try to use appropriate follow-up approaches that are more acceptable to the patients. Other studies list out "tips to improve the retention." However, the authors believe that patients' need is the core to improve retention.