DOES AESTHETIC, PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY HAVE A WIDE ACQUAINTANCE AMONG HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION?

Plastic surgery is a rapidly growing and evolving specialty. Its broad spectrum makes the field vulnerable to public and professional misconceptions and therefore other specialties continue to encroach on the plastic surgical domain. The way plastic surgery is perceived by the hospital workers is important as they have an important role for referrals and public awareness. In this study, in order to test whether this specialty is adequately known amongst hospital workers, a questionnaire was developed with close-ended format questions in four categories including trauma, congenital malformation, tumor and aesthetic and general plastic surgery. Workers of three university hospitals of Mediterranean region were asked to match a specialty to one of the 40 given surgical procedures or conditions. Attempt was made to blind respondents by including 13 conditions managed routinely by other specialities. Completed and valid questionnaires from 516 responders (73%) were collected including 92 physician, 223 collateral health care provider, 79 administrative personnel, 49 technician and 73 attendants from the labor unit. Statistically significant differences in responses were detected between these occupation groups. The highest positive response rate was given by the physicians in the trauma section. A mean of 7,29 +/- 1,58 physicians matched all plastic surgery-related clinical conditions with plastic surgery in this section. Overall results revealed that salivary gland tumors (% 7.8), hypospadias (14,7%) oral tumors (17.2%), venous ulcers (21.9%), chest wall deformities (% 22.7) and skin tumors (23.6%) were the clinical conditions to be least correlated with plastic surgery. Although only 31% of responders considered plastic surgery to repair traumatic tendon injuries, 75.8% of them chose plastic surgery as the specialty to treat traumatic hand deformities (highest positive response rate). The results from this study show that the core areas of plastic surgery especially head and neck tumors are poorly known amongst hospital workers in the Mediterranean region.