Women’s experience of making decision to do liposuction surgery: A qualitative study

Background: liposuction is one of the most common cosmetic surgeries which has dangerous complications. With regard to the increasing number of liposuction clients, probability of developing severe complications, and forcing high working load and expenses on healthcare and specially nursing system, this question comes to the mind that what are the reasons put forward by people to undergo this surgery.

Methods: Present study was conducted based on a qualitative content analysis method. The main method of data collecting was semi-structured open-ended interviews, and conducting interviews was continued till the data saturation was achieved. Participants were selected purposefully among female clients who had undergone liposuction at least three months before conducting interviews.

Results: Thirteen 30-55 years old women, who had undergone liposuction in the past one to five years, participated in the study. Two main themes including “desire for beauty”, and “risk accepting” were extracted from the data. "beauty era", "ugliness era", and "desire for returning to beauty era" were categorized as subthemes of “desire for beauty”; and "living under pressure", "trying to compensate", "reaching to the end of line", and "accepting the risk of operation" were categorized as subthemes of “risk accepting”.

Conclusion: The participants accepted the risks to undergo the surgery in order to achieve beauty. This shows that the people's appearance plays an important role in realizing the integrity and life satisfaction. Further research is suggested about the people's experiences of the outcomes of such surgery.