Haneen Assad Hammadi¹, Etemad AA El-Shereef^{2, 3,}

Background: This study investigates the knowledge, attitudes and practices of cosmetic surgery among faculty of education female students at Taif University (KSA). Methods: An observational cross-sectional study design was used to carry out the study at College of Education, Taif University. A self-administered questionnaire was first developed to collect the data necessary to fulfill the objectives of the research. The population under study included a random sample in which the questionnaire was distributed to female educational students at Taif University. The sample size was estimated by using a single proportion formula with an acceptable margin of error at 5%. The sample size obtained was 234. Those who completed the questionnaires were 220 students. Results: The mean age of the participants was 19.919±0.834. Out of 234 Taif female educational students in our study, the majority of participants (220, 94.0%) have heard about cosmetic surgery and completed the questionnaire. Mass Media was the source of knowledge for (79.1%) of participants who had already heard about cosmetic surgery. Only one-fourth of students (25.0%) of surveyed female educational students recognized the best definition of plastic surgery as a "surgery to restore function or normal appearance and (51.8%) recognized the best definition of cosmetic surgery as “a surgery that modifies or improves the appearance of a physical feature electively”. Abdomioplasty and rhinoplasy were the most common mentioned types of cosmetic surgery they remembered. (40.0%) of students whose mothers employed accept doing cosmetic surgery and only (11.8%) of non-employed mothers accept doing surgery. This difference was statistically significant (p=0.000). Mean age of students who accept doing cosmetic surge yeas higher than those do not accept but difference in mean age was statistically insignificant (p= 0.063). About two-thirds of participants (66.4%) agreed that “women perform more cosmetic surgery than men”. No one of participants reported undergoing cosmetic surgery. Conclusion and recommendations: The students did not know the exact meaning of cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery. Mass media play an important role as a source of information. we recommend further studies to find out other personal factors affecting attitude towards plastic surgeries and to study other population beyond educational institutions.

plastic surgery, knowledge, attitude and practice, Al Taif university