Quality of Life of the Plastic Surgeon in the Midwest of Brazil

BACKGROUND: The quality of life theme is much studied in the area of plastic surgery; however, there are few studies on the quality of life of plastic surgeons. The main aim of this study was to describe the quality of life of the plastic surgeon in Center-West of Brazil. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed of plastic surgeons in the greater state of Goias, Center-West of Brazil, registered until January 2015. A sample with power of 80%, 115 surgeons from 163 WHOQOL-BREF, and a social-demographic and professional questionnaire were used as instruments. The data were compared between qualitative variables of the questionnaire and WHOQOL-BREF using the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. RESULTS: One hundred sixteen surgeons answered; for WHOQOL-BREF, domain statistics were as follows: physical, 57.85; psychological, 62.9; social, 74.13; and environment, 68.56. The higher scores in each domain were related: physical: monthly income higher than US$ 11,200, more than 10 years of experience, weekly work hours lower than 40, being an associate or full member, and more than 4 surgeries/week; psychological: man, married, and having only private patients; social: man, monthly income higher than US$15,000, more than 20 years of experience, and weekly work hours lower than 40; and environment: monthly income higher than US$15,000, more than 10 years of experience, weekly work hours lower than 60, and more than 4 surgeries/week. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrates that the youngest surgeon, with a duration of less than 10 years, has the worst quality of life.