THE IMPACT OF MALE-TO-FEMALE SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF TRANSSEXUAL PATIENTS
Awad, MC(1); Nogueira Jr, JdS(1); Silva, FG(1); Schiavini, JL(1); da Silva, EA(1); Damião, R(1)
(1)Service of Urology, Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Introduction: Transsexualism, defined as the desire to belong to the opposite sex and to make the body congruent with the preferred psychological sex through hormonal and surgical treatment, is characterized by intense psychological suffering and, therefore, impaired quality of life. Few studies are available regarding quality of life of a transsexual population after surgical procedure. We aimed to evaluate the impact of sex reassignment surgery on quality of life of male-to-female (MtF) transgender patients.
Materials and Methods: We analyzed 29 MtF transsexual patients, with a mean age of 34.6 ± 8.8 years and diagnosis of transsexualism given by a mental health group in accordance with the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and ICD-10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems) criteria. Sex reassignment surgery consisted in neocolpoplasty using inverted prepuce and a sensitive neoclitoroplasty. Quality of life was assessed by the WHOQOL-Bref (World Health Organization’s Quality of Life) questionnaire before and after the MtF sex reassignment surgery. P values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: Physical, social relationship and environment domains presented no significant difference (p=0.947, p=0.752 and p=0.372, respectively) in regard to the comparison of the results from before and after sex reassignment surgery. However, the psychological domain evidenced significant difference (p=0.025), essentially marked by an increase in the scores of questions referring to body image (q11) and self-esteem (q19) and a decrease in the score of the question regarding the occurrence of negative feelings (q26).
Conclusions: MtF sex reassignment surgery has a crucial impact on quality of life of transgender patients, particularly concerning enhancement of self-esteem and body image and appearance and decrease of occurrence of negative feelings.
