Internet use by plastic surgery patients pre-operatively in a university teaching hospital in the United Kingdom

Internet use amongst the United Kingdom's adult population is widespread and on the increase. We noticed that numerous patients attending our clinics had sought information about procedures on the Internet. We distributed a questionnaire to 100 consecutive patients attending for elective plastic surgery procedures. The response rate was 61%. However, only 12% (seven out of 61) of the patients who responded had researched their operation on the Internet. The median age of those who did search the Internet was 34 years compared to 53 years for those who did not. All who searched the Internet were having reconstructive procedures, and all felt their operation was of a cosmetic nature. Viewing photographic images was the most common reason given to look up the procedures. They all felt that searching the Web helped in their understanding of the operation, and they all felt that providing such information on hospital websites would be useful. The use of the Internet is not as widespread among plastic surgery patients as we had anticipated.