Investigating the Prevalence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) in Orthosurgery Patients

BDD is a psychiatric diagnosis in the spectrum of obsessive compulsive disorder wherein the patient has a damaging mental preoccupation with a slight deficiency in his physical appearance. Awareness of this disease and its symptoms is essential for proper diagnosis and management of the patient.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 86 patients who underwent orthognathic surgery. A demographic information questionnaire, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale modified for the BDD questionnaire, BDI-II questionnaire (Depression Scale) and Beck Anxiety Scale questionnaire were completed by patients to assess BDD disorder, depression, and anxiety. Data were described using appropriate statistical tables and graphs to express indicators and frequency distribution. Shapiro-Wilk, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Fisher tests were used to analyze the data.

This study was performed on 86 patients with a mean age of 23.19±4.5 years. The percentage of BDD in women (20%) was higher than in men (14%), but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.685). The prevalence of depression was significantly higher (p<0.001) in patients with BDD (53%) than in those without this disorder (11%). The prevalence of anxiety was significantly higher (p<0.001) in patients with BDD (67%) than in those without this disorder (23%). With increasing age, the BDD scores decrease slightly, but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.113).

The prevalence of BDD in the study population was 17.4%. The high prevalence of the disorder in orthognathic surgery patients compared to the general population requires the serious attention of dentists to this disorder.