Abstract
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Highlights
Highlights
● Facial nerve injury causes disfigurement, and may consequently harm body image.
● People with facial nerve palsy may suffer from psycho-emotional problems such as depression, social isolation, and self-consciousness.
● Women with facial nerve palsy may be more vulnerable to social isolation and find it difficult to socialize as before the injury.
● Women with facial nerve palsy seem to be less depressed since they have contacts with both men and women.
Plain Language Summary
Injury of the facial nerve that innervates the muscles of the face can result in the deviation of face to the other side, thus making the face looks ugly. This problem can affect the way people, and especially women and young people, feel about themselves, resulting in depression and low self-esteem. In this study, we investigated the relationship between this problem and the patients’ feeling about themselves and how they reintegrate into society. Based on the results, men socialize better than females and reintegrate into society faster. In addition, when facial nerve injury is severe, or the patient is old, the ability to integrate back into the community decreases. Also, when the patients are suffering from anxiety or their facial disfigurement is severe, their ability to reintegrate into society becomes very low. However, marital status did not have any significant relationship with the ability to reintegrate into society. Therefore, rehabilitation services for people with facial nerve injury should focus on the prevention or reduction of psycho-emotional problems and helping the patients to reintegrate into society.