Authors' reply: Comment on: Cosmetic procedures among youths: survey of junior college and medical students in Singapore

Dear Sir,

This is in response to the letter written by Chua and Li⁽¹⁾ regarding our article.⁽²⁾ We would like to highlight that the Norwegian study by Javo and Sørlie⁽³⁾ included a representative sample of 3,500 women aged 18–35 years. Therefore, unlike what is suggested by Chua and Li, there was a variation in age and maturity among the subjects in the Norwegian study.⁽³⁾ In a country like Singapore, where education is almost universal among our youths, it is unfortunately impossible to compare two groups of subjects who are similar in age but have vastly different amount of education. In other words, it is inevitable that in studying Singaporean youths, older age would correspond with a higher level of education. However, we agree that future studies could aim to include a larger and more representative sample of youths. In the meantime, the lack of knowledge on cosmetic procedures even in this select group of youths makes our findings more startling.

Yours sincerely,
Jia Hui Ng¹, Seth Yeak², Natalie Phoon³, Stephen Lo^4
1Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, ²Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, ³Cork University Dental School and Hospital, National University of Ireland, Ireland, ⁴Formerly from the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore. jiahui.ng@mohh.com.sg

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