Body image is an important augmentation to quality of life in evaluating the results of laparoscopic versus classic surgery

Abstract

Introduction: Apart from the positive biomedical consequences, there are supposed psychological benefits gained by patients due to laparoscopy. To evaluate the psychological consequences of surgical intervention areas such as the quality of a patient's life and subjective body image perception are explored. Aim: The purpose was to determine the value of body esteem evaluation in differentiation of the results of laparoscopic vs. classic surgery in the context of insufficient sensitivity of quality of life measures in such differentiation. Material and methods: There were 57 participants treated with laparoscopic and classic cholecystectomies and adrenalectomies in the Department of Surgery, Medical University of Gdansk, Poland. Two types of psychological measures were used: the Body Esteem Scale (BES) and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT). Both surveys were distributed to the patients 1 day before and 1 month after the operation. Results: One month after the intervention, QoL, according to FACIT, increased slightly among patients after both laparoscopic and classic surgery (respectively 4.5% and 6.8%, p <0.005), while the body image indicator decreased by 2.9% after the laparoscopic operation, compared to 28.5% after classic surgery. Multiple logistic regression revealed that high body esteem scale results were significant predictors of the laparoscopic approach (OR 2.15, 95% CI 2.01-2.86) while quality of life alone was not a significant differentiator of the approaches used (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.75-1.35). conclusion: Body image studies provide more sensitive information capable of distinguishing between laparoscopic and classic approaches than merely quality of life measures, which justifies the complementary use of BI in the comparative assessment of classic and laparoscopic surgery.