?Everybody is watching me?: A closer look at anxiety in people with facial palsy

Objectives: Objectives were to evaluate the sociodemographic and disease-related factors, and coping style associated with social interaction and social appearance anxiety in people with unilateral facial palsy. Methods: Medical data were extracted from electronic health records, and participants com-pleted the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS), Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS), and Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced inventory. Associations of SIAS and SAAS scores with sociodemographic and disease variables, and coping were assessed with multiple linear regression. Results: Among 111 participants (mean age 58.6 years; 59% women), higher age and greater use of emotion-focused coping were associated with lower SIAS scores, whereas greater use of avoidant coping was associated with higher SIAS scores. Higher age, male sex, and greater use of emotion-focused coping were associated with lower SAAS scores, whereas greater use of avoidant coping was associated with higher SAAS scores. Conclusions: Healthcare providers should understand that women and younger people are more likely to have social appearance concerns and that this is not predicted by the objective severity of facial palsy. ?? 2022 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Pub-lished by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Automated summary

The objective of this study was to evaluate the sociodemographic and disease-related factors, as well as coping style, associated with social interaction and social appearance anxiety in individuals with unilateral facial palsy. The results showed that higher age and greater use of emotion-focused coping were associated with lower social interaction anxiety scores, while greater use of avoidant coping was associated with higher social interaction anxiety scores. Higher age, male sex, and greater use of emotion-focused coping were associated with lower social appearance anxiety scores, while greater use of avoidant coping was associated with higher social appearance anxiety scores.