Nonsurgical Medical Aesthetics and Patient Quality of Life: An Umbrella Review.

Nonsurgical cosmetic facial procedures have become popular treatment options for individuals seeking aesthetic improvements. Despite a breadth of literature on patient satisfaction with treatment outcomes, there is a lack of information specific to changes in quality of life outcomes. The objective of this umbrella review is to report the effectiveness of nonsurgical facial aesthetic treatments on reported quality of life in cosmetic treatment-seeking patients. The authors also aim to identify gaps in the literature on measures of quality of life outside of patient satisfaction. The authors completed a comprehensive, systematic search of review articles across 6 databases, including Medline, CINAHL Plus, EMBASE, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane Reviews, and Google Scholar. They included review-level studies that examine the changes in quality of life measures following treatment. A critical appraisal was completed for each review article included. A total of 7 reviews were included. One review was of strong quality, 2 moderate, and 4 were weak. Several nonsurgical procedures were evaluated across reviews, including injectable neurotoxins, dermal fillers, and laser skin resurfacing. The majority of included studies reported increases in measures of quality of life, posttreatment in the same patient or compared with controls. The most commonly reported measure was psychological well-being, followed by self-perception. There was a lack of measures outside of improvements to aesthetics, including those specific to mental health (eg, depression). Overall, based on the studies on nonsurgical treatments, the authors report increases in overall quality of life. This conclusion should be interpreted with caution, as the majority of reviews included were of moderate-to-weak quality. A major gap in this literature includes mental health outcomes. Future research should focus on increasing the rigor of reporting for systematic reviews.

Level of evidence 2 risk: