Poster Presentation New Zealand Association of Plastic Surgeons ASM & AGM

SF36 - A short alternative patient reported outcome measure for body contouring surgery post massive weight loss (1278)

Andrew D May 1 , Richard Harries 1
  1. SA Health, Unley, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, Australia

Body contouring procedures are increasingly popular, especially in the post bariatric surgery context. Our unit performs body contouring surgery as part of a public hospital bariatric MDT in order to address skin excess after massive weight loss. As part of our public funding we felt it necessary to evaluate outcomes of this surgery. Multiple surveys have been evaluated for outcomes in body contouring, many of which are long and as such incomplete questionnaires has been a problem in our unit. We evaluated Patient Reported Outcomes using a more simple questionnaire. The SF36 is a short tool that scores health related quality of life across domains such as physical symptoms, societal and social functioning and general health perceptions. 15 patients who underwent abdominoplasty post massive weight loss were surveyed pre and post operatively. While our sample size is small and no statistical significance could be found, we present a dataset that shows a strong trend towards improved scores for every domain. A short and general health survey such as SF36 may therefore be a valid alternative to more lengthy and specific body contouring PROMs in an effort to collect more complete data.

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