Background and objective.

A variety of surgical fields are collected under the specialty Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery, however, in the authors' opinion, population's perception about this area has been distorted over the years.

The aim of this study is to know the perception of the Spanish non-health population about the specialty of Plastic Surgery.

Methods.

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study, was carried out through a questionnaire of 21 questions aimed at a Spanish non-health population or whose work activity was not carried out in a hospital.

Results.

Participate in the study 1038 people, 80% female gender and 18% male. The age distribution was similar in all groups except for those aged 25-34 who had a higher representation. The majority had higher education. There were participants from all the Autonomous Communities, Galicia being the most represented with 53%.

Twelve per cent of participants had a history of interventions by Plastic Surgery in public or mutual health, while Aesthetic Surgery was 14%. Most of the participants (69%) contemplate the subspecialization in Plastic Surgery after finishing the specialty in General Surgery as one of the ways to obtain the title, whereas less than 40% of the participants knew the real ways of access to the specialty. More than a quarter of the participants thought that Plastic Surgery and Aesthetic Medicine were the same, and only half were aware of the existence of plastic surgeons in public hospitals and knowing what their field of work is.

Conclusions.

In our study, most of the participants had a misconception of obtaining the title of Plastic Surgery specialization in Spain and a restricted knowledge about which areas the specialty encompass. The profiles related to Aesthetic Surgery were more popular on social networks than those of Reconstructive Surgery; both fields were interesting for most participants for future outreach campaigns, and social networks were the preferred media.

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