TY - JOUR
T1 - What Do Our Patients Truly Want? Conjoint Analysis of an Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Practice Using Internet Crowdsourcing
AU - Wu, Cindy
AU - Scott Hultman, C.
AU - Diegidio, Paul
AU - Hermiz, Steven
AU - Garimella, Roja
AU - Crutchfield, Trisha M.
AU - Lee, Clara N.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Inc. Reprints and permission: journals.permissions@oup.com.
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - BACKGROUND: What do patients want when looking for an aesthetic surgeon? When faced with attributes like reputation, years in practice, testimonials, photos, and pricing, which is more valuable? Moreover, are attributes procedure-specific? Currently, inadequate evidence exists on which attributes are most important to patients, and to our knowledge, none on procedure-specific preferences.OBJECTIVES: First, to determine the most important attributes to breast augmentation, combined breast/abdominal surgery, and facelift patients using conjoint analysis. Second, to test the conjoint using an internet crowdsourcing service (Amazon Mechanical Turk [MTurk]).METHODS: Anonymous university members were asked, via mass electronic survey, to pick a surgeon for facelift surgery based on five attributes. Attribute importance and preference was calculated. Once pre-tested, the facelift, breast augmentation and combined breast/abdominal surgery surveys were administered worldwide to MTurk.RESULTS: The university facelift cohort valued testimonials (33.9%) as the most important, followed by photos (31.6%), reputation (18.2%), pricing (14.4%), and practice years (1.9%). MTurk breast augmentation participants valued photos (35.3%), then testimonials (33.9%), reputation (15.7%), pricing (12.2%), and practice years (3%). MTurk combined breast/abdominal surgery and facelift participants valued testimonials (38.3% and 38.1%, respectively), then photos (27.9%, 29.4%), reputation (17.5%, 15.8%), pricing (13.9%, 13.9%), practice years (2.4%, 2.8%).CONCLUSIONS: Breast augmentation patients placed higher importance on photos; combined breast/abdominal surgery and facelift patients valued testimonials. Conjoint analysis has had limited application in plastic surgery. To our knowledge, internet crowdsourcing is a novel participant recruitment method in plastic surgery. Its unique benefits include broad, diverse and anonymous participant pools, low-cost, rapid data collection, and high completion rate.
AB - BACKGROUND: What do patients want when looking for an aesthetic surgeon? When faced with attributes like reputation, years in practice, testimonials, photos, and pricing, which is more valuable? Moreover, are attributes procedure-specific? Currently, inadequate evidence exists on which attributes are most important to patients, and to our knowledge, none on procedure-specific preferences.OBJECTIVES: First, to determine the most important attributes to breast augmentation, combined breast/abdominal surgery, and facelift patients using conjoint analysis. Second, to test the conjoint using an internet crowdsourcing service (Amazon Mechanical Turk [MTurk]).METHODS: Anonymous university members were asked, via mass electronic survey, to pick a surgeon for facelift surgery based on five attributes. Attribute importance and preference was calculated. Once pre-tested, the facelift, breast augmentation and combined breast/abdominal surgery surveys were administered worldwide to MTurk.RESULTS: The university facelift cohort valued testimonials (33.9%) as the most important, followed by photos (31.6%), reputation (18.2%), pricing (14.4%), and practice years (1.9%). MTurk breast augmentation participants valued photos (35.3%), then testimonials (33.9%), reputation (15.7%), pricing (12.2%), and practice years (3%). MTurk combined breast/abdominal surgery and facelift participants valued testimonials (38.3% and 38.1%, respectively), then photos (27.9%, 29.4%), reputation (17.5%, 15.8%), pricing (13.9%, 13.9%), practice years (2.4%, 2.8%).CONCLUSIONS: Breast augmentation patients placed higher importance on photos; combined breast/abdominal surgery and facelift patients valued testimonials. Conjoint analysis has had limited application in plastic surgery. To our knowledge, internet crowdsourcing is a novel participant recruitment method in plastic surgery. Its unique benefits include broad, diverse and anonymous participant pools, low-cost, rapid data collection, and high completion rate.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014080768&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85014080768&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/asj/sjw143
DO - 10.1093/asj/sjw143
M3 - Article
C2 - 27651401
AN - SCOPUS:85014080768
SN - 1090-820X
VL - 37
SP - 105
EP - 118
JO - Aesthetic surgery journal
JF - Aesthetic surgery journal
IS - 1
ER -