After facial feminization surgery, transgender people report better psychosocial health

Key takeaways:A positive step.Gender-affirming surgery is one of the most important procedures for patients with gender dysphoria, researchers say.Quality of life.People who had the surgery reported higher scores in 7 of 11 measures of psychosocial health than those awaiting the procedure.Expanding health coverage.Researchers hope the findings will encourage more U.S. health insurance plans to cover the surgery.A UCLA study offers the first evidence that transgender patients who receive gender-affirming facial feminization surgery reported better mental health after their procedures.Thestudy was published in the journal Annals of Surgery.According to Dr. Justine Lee, UCLA ’s Bernard G. Sarnat Professor of Craniofacial Biology, gender-affirming facial surgery is frequently classified by insurers as a cosmetic procedure, in part because of a lack of evidence that the procedure improves patients’ quality of life.“Access to facial gender-affirming surgeries under health insurance coverage in the U.S. is more limited than gender-affirming surgeries of other anatomic regions due to a lack of data on mental health quality-of-life outcomes,” said Lee, who was the study’s lead author and is an associate pro fessor of surgery at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.“Our findings have the potential to change health insurance policies for the better for transgender patients.”Researchers compared mental health assessments for 107 patients who were awaiting surgery with...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news