[The psychological consequences of prognathism (author's transl)]

Abstract

In a prospective study of 54 prognathic patients the psychological effects of this condition, which occurs typically at puberty, were investigated in postoperative follow-up examinations and the psychological effect of a corrective operation investigated. For this purpose standardized questionnaires and a semistructured psychiatric interview were used. The hypothetically expected personality disturbance of a "dysmorphophobia" was found in only some of our patients. With an inconspicuous premorbid personality they reacted to the psychological trauma of their facial deformity with depressive crises of self-assessment in the occupational and private spheres. Here, convincing postoperative improvements occur beside which the "psychological scars" are still recognizable owing to the earlier deformity.