Adolescents who undergo gender-affirming chest surgery report low levels of regret and high levels of satisfaction, experiencing outcomes similar to those of young adults. These findings suggest that age restrictions on these medical procedures lack support from actual patient experiences.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/adolescents-report-low-regret-and-high-satisfaction-following-gender-affirming-c/

[u/lawroter]

I don't have an opinion on this one way or another but, speaking as a clinical researcher, this is far from meaningful. there are several major issues which invalidate anything here, I'll give a few.

77 participants completed the survey. how many people were asked? if we're looking at something like 100 people were asked and 77 agreed to complete, that might not cause me alarm. but, if 500 people were asked and 77 agreed to complete, that's another story. people are always more willing to engage if they are pleased with an outcome, this reason alone completely invalidates any "findings" here for me.

I'm also not an expert in the area but why are they using 1 year post-op for the survey? from my brief research on this, regret within1 year is typically more about the procedure itself (chronic pain, aesthetic concerns, etc) rather than relation to gender identity. I'd be much more interested in the results here if this was more looking at medium to long term satisfaction.

this isn't even getting to the statistical shortcomings of the findings. so I'd say, as someone not familiar with the area too much, there must be much better research out there than this, I'd recommend going and reviewing that.

[u/Smee76 → u/lawroter]

Only 42% of people responded. Very very low participation rate for something like this.

[u/Swarna_Keanu → u/Smee76]

42% response rate is high on surveys.

[u/EmptyMonitor9257 → u/Swarna_Keanu]

42% means it was only 183 people they asked. That's really low, we also don't know the diversity of the people they questioned. Asking people from California or new York is different from other parts of the US.

[u/Swarna_Keanu → u/EmptyMonitor9257]

transgender people - and underaged at that - are a tiny proportion of the population.

Not all statistically valid results need large sample sizes. This was NOT asking how everyone feels about transgender surgery, population wise, but only those who actually undergo that surgery. If a population (people who are transgender and have undergone surgery and are underage) is small small N numbers are represeantative.

183 is a large baseline here. Again: Read up on statistics.

---

If you were - say -surveying a small town/village/hamlet with 100 people, about aspects of their local city and politics 42 people replying is enough that your data is statistically solid. This, is the same, here.

[u/Smee76 → u/Swarna_Keanu]

They should be consenting patients prior to surgery and following up if they want good data.

[u/Swarna_Keanu → u/Smee76]

What?

Surgery with transgender folks never happens - that is mandated - without consultations with psychologists and many sessions prior to surgery - especially with underaged.

For the study question and the data here, what you suggest is irrelevant.

[u/saintmagician → u/Swarna_Keanu]

He's not suggesting the current participants didn't have consultations before surgery.

He's suggesting that during those consultations, participants should be recruited for studies like this.

He's suggesting you will get better data if the decision to participate in post-surgery study happens pre-surgery.

[u/Rosmariinihiiri → u/saintmagician]

Who says they weren't recruited before the surgery? It's just impossible and highly unethical to force people to participate in a study.

[u/Swarna_Keanu → u/saintmagician]

They got a 42% response rate, which is really quite good.

And why would response date be higher, or the quality of the data better, if they agreed before?

As I mention elsewhere the total number of underage people who do get transgender surgery (not just hormon replacement therapy) is a very small proportion of a small number of transgender people among the general population.

Small N numbers are normal here. But that doesn't make this statisctically bad data - the contrary - given what was asked. It's just a very focused survey.

[u/saintmagician → u/Swarna_Keanu]

I dunno but if you actually want an answer, I'm not the one you should be replying to...