Willingness to Pay Correlates With Social Perception of Pediatric and Adult Scars: Crowdsourcing Study

Background: Willingness to pay (WTP) has been an important tool in healthcare used to understand public priorities and satisfaction rates. We utilized a crowdsourcing platform to assess WTP for pediatric versus adult scar "removals." Our hypothesis is that scar visibility and scar bearer's age will affect respondents' WTP. Objectives: To assess social perception of pediatric and adult scars on faces and hands, and to assess effects of crowdsourcing survey's respondents' income, gender, and having own children on WTP. Methods: Images of pediatric and adult face and hand scars were obtained on Shutterstock. Two crowdsourcing Qualtrics surveys assessed WTP, scar severity rating from 1 to 5, and demographics of interest. Results: Face and hand scar surveys obtained 100 and 142 responses, respectively. Willingness to pay was higher for pediatric face scar "removal" than adult (USD$4946 vs $3130; P < .001) and pediatric hand scar "removal" than adult (USD$1418 vs $807; P < .001). Higher income was associated with higher WTP for face scars, but not hand scars. Gender did not influence WTP for child versus adult. Having children demonstrated higher WTP only for face scars in children. The severity of both face and hand pediatric scars was perceived to be worse than that of similar scars in adults. Per one point on the scar severity rating, respondents were willing to pay more for pediatric scar "removal" compared to that for adults. Conclusions: Willingness to pay is a useful tool for understanding the general population's priorities regarding scar revisions.