The Impact of Race, Age, Gender, Income, and Level of Education on Motivations to Pursue Cosmetic Surgery and Surgeon Selection at an Academic Institution.

Background: Aesthetic surgery is a personal choice that appeals to a wide population of individuals. The authors investigated how race and ethnicity, age, gender, income, and education level affect patient motivation to pursue cosmetic surgery and selection of a plastic surgeon.

Methods: One hundred seventy-two consecutive patients from two surgeons (an African American man and a Caucasian woman) completed surveys from 2016 to 2017 that assessed their decision to pursue cosmetic surgery. Univariable cumulative logit models with odds ratios and 95 percent confidence intervals were calculated with the survey data.

Results: African American patients were more likely to be willing to travel greater than 100 miles for a surgeon who shared the same ethnicity or race, to consider international surgery, to report that social standards did not influence their decision for surgery, and to view the buttocks as the female feature that best defines attractiveness within their race or ethnicity. Patients with incomes over $125,000 and those over the age of 50 years were more likely to seek a surgeon of the same gender, think a same-gender surgeon could provide better results, be influenced by societal standards to pursue surgery, and view the face as the defining attractive female feature within their race or ethnicity. Patients with college or graduate degrees were more likely to believe a gender- and racially concordant surgeon would provide them with better a result and believed societal standards were unrealistic to obtain with diet and exercise.

Conclusions: Plastic surgeons encounter patients of varying demographics, all of whom have differing perspectives about cosmetic surgery and motivations for its pursuit. Recognizing and defining these differences could enable surgeons to provide a more individualized cosmetic experience and inform future marketing strategies to attract a diverse patient population.