Although most individuals who elect orthognathic surgery are satisfied with the procedure, the literature suggests a minority of patients exhibit dissatisfaction with their surgery. Current research suggests psychoeducational and psychosocial risk factors contribute to the risk of post-operative dissatisfaction. Although a number of articles have investigated the effectiveness of psychoeducationally-based pre-operative interventions for other surgeries, to date there has been only one published study examining the effects of a pre-operative intervention to improve post-operative satisfaction among orthognathic surgery patients (Phillips, Kiyak, Bloomquist, and Turvey, 2004). In that study, the researchers did not find their intervention affected post-surgical satisfaction ratings.

The current study attempts to assess the acceptability and feasibility of a pre-operative psychoeducationally-based group intervention designed by Muscat et al (2015) to help patients prepare for orthognathic surgery and its recovery. A secondary aim is to obtain a preliminary signal regarding the intervention's efficacy in terms of improvements in psychological distress over the course of treatment. Twenty patients and their caregivers (n=14) attended the pre-operative psychoeducational group intervention. Results showed the intervention was highly acceptable, with a mean satisfaction rating of 30.12 (SD=2.33) out of 32 on the CSQ-8. However, while generally feasible, with 70% attending both sessions and data collection rates of 85% of expected (96/113), there were difficulties with participant recruitment and consistent data collection. In addition, the study found evidence that the intervention produced a moderate effect in increasing participant psychoeducation regarding orthognathic surgery and its recovery as was intended by the intervention. No significant preliminary effects were found in terms of improvements in the psychological symptoms of depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia or obsessive-compulsive disorder in participants, though a small effect in reducing symptoms of body dysmorphia amongst participants was observed.

In conclusion, the study demonstrated a psychoeducationally-based pre-operative group intervention to help patients prepare for orthognathic surgery and its recovery to be highly acceptable as well as overall feasible. Results also observed preliminary effectiveness in terms of knowledge gained and improvement in psychological symptoms.