Abstract
Background
Rates of plastic surgery procedures have increased dramatically over the past several decades, especially for the women in South Korea.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore the subjective experience of South Korean women in their twenties and thirties with facial plastic surgery (FPS) side effects.
Participants and methods
Seven women who have suffered from FPS side effects participated in this study. Data were collected from July to September 2015 through individual in-depth interviews using open-ended questions and analyzed using Colaizzi’s method, which is a Husserlian phenomenological approach.
Results
Six themes, and 25 subthemes, were found. Major themes were “choosing FPS to gain a new self”, “facing an unintended self”, “trying to accept a changed self”, “making efforts to overcome the situation”, “coming to know a new world”, and “pursuing a new lifestyle”.
Conclusion
This study raises social awareness on the risk of plastic surgery side effects, which could prevent unnecessary plastic surgery. It also suggests the need for a deeper understanding of women’s biopsychosocial suffering from plastic surgery side effects.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT; Ministry of Science and ICT) (No. NRF-2017R1C1B5016043).
Disclosure
This manuscript is based on a part of Kim YA’s doctoral dissertation from Chonnam National University. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.