Social Physique Anxiety and its Relation with Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Abstract

The current study has been performed in order to compare social physique anxiety and Body Dismorphic Disorder between a group under medical cosmetic treatments and a control group. The study population consisted of 200 subjects, undergoing medical cosmetic therapy and 200 not receiving any medication considering this matter, which were selected by hand-to-hand and simple random sampling. In this post-causal study, to gather the information required for Heart’s social physical anxiety criterion, Philips’ Body Dysmorphic Disorder diagnostic questionnaire was distributed amongst the subjects. A significant difference and opposition, considering the degree of social physical anxiety (p=0.04), the number of persons with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (P=0.05) and those who showed a tendency towards cosmetic surgery (P=01), was observed between the main group of subjects and the control group. In both groups, those who had physical disorders, abnormalities or deformities, experienced higher levels of social physique anxiety. This value was reported higher in the subjects of the control group. The results indicate that the subjects of the group which had visited a center in order to receive cosmetic treatments, experience lower levels of social physique anxiety. Having Body dysmorphic Disorder and not receiving the required cosmetic treatments and medications, were determined the most important factors in predicting social physical anxiety levels, whilst other attributes, such as gender and the patient’s tendency towards undergoing a cosmetic surgery, are not effective in the prediction of such a value.