A study published recently in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery examines how much people would be willing to pay to fix a perceived facial defect.

In the study, Lisa E. Ishii, MD, MHS, from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and others on her research team measured health state utility (a health-related area of quality of life) and dollar value (as measured by the maximum amount of money a person is willing to pay) for surgically reconstructing facial defects.

They asked 200 casual observers to look at images of faces with defects of varying size and location before and after surgical reconstruction. They were then asked to imagine that the defect was on their own face, and to rate their health state utility and how much they would be willing to pay to have the defect surgically removed to appear normal, explains a media release from The JAMA Network Journals.

According to the release, the group of observers were willing to pay more (average: $7,875) to repair large and central facial defects, and less (average: $1,170) to repair small and peripheral facial defects. Also, the participant group perceived facial defects to decrease quality of life.

The study notes that the data may be different from actual patient experience and the actual costs of surgical reconstruction, the release notes.

[Source(s): The JAMA Network Journals, Science Daily]