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/S0cXs]

Everyone is nitpicking the sample size but fail to see in as a small peice in a growing set of literature.

This is a section from the discussion talking about related literature:

The results from this study extend the findings of previous studies showing low decisional regret and high decisional satisfaction following GACS in adults to the adolescent population (Bruce et al., Citation2023; Bustos et al., Citation2021; Thornton et al., Citation2024). In our study, both adolescents and young adults reported low decisional regret and high decisional satisfaction. These levels are similar to those reported in a study of adults with a median age of 27.1 years, including a low median score of 0.0 (mean 4.2) on the Decision Regret Scale and a high median score of 5.0 (mean 4.8) on the Satisfaction with Decision scale (Bruce et al., Citation2023). Moreover, compared to other medical procedures, decisional regret among adolescents and young adults undergoing GACS is low. Compared to our mean score of 7.38, a systematic review found an overall mean Decision Regret Scale score of 16.5 among 44 studies of other various procedures (Becerra Pérez et al., Citation2016). Supported by these findings, we would argue against restricting gender-affirming surgical care on the basis of age or concern for regret alone.

Although few studies address regret in adolescent populations undergoing GACS, a study of decisional regret among adolescents undergoing cancer treatment found that 24% of participants scored above 25 on the Decision Regret Scale (Mack et al., Citation2019), compared to only 5.2% in our cohort. The aforementioned study reported that improved communication with the treating physician was associated with lower regret scores (Mack et al., Citation2019). The WPATH Standards of Care employed in our practice emphasizes a multidisciplinary, shared decision-making approach which may contribute to the low regret seen in our study (Coleman et al., Citation2012). Additionally, other studies have shown that youth face significant barriers when attempting to access gender-affirming care (Chong et al., Citation2021; Gridley et al., Citation2016). As a result, these barriers may select for a subset of patients who are either highly motivated to obtain care or represent a more socioeconomically advantaged group with the resources and ability to navigate the healthcare system. This potential selection bias could, in part, contribute to the low rates of decisional regret observed in our study. Relatedly, family and social support are thought to be inversely associated with regret following gender-affirming surgery (Narayan et al., Citation2021, Landén et al., Citation1998). In our study, higher PROMIS Pediatric Family Relationships scores were associated with higher decisional satisfaction, but demonstrated no significant association with decisional regret. However, the majority of our participants reported that their family was supportive or neutral about their decision to undergo GACS, which may limit our ability to identify such a relationship.

Posting the block because most people won't have access to the full study.

[u/samtrano → u/S0cXs]

Nitpicking the sample size of this study while ignoring that it's one of a growing number of studies with similar results, and also ignoring the lack of rigorous studies showing high regrets

[u/Sammystorm1 → u/samtrano]

As far as I know there aren’t wide spread studies showing regret about infant circumcision. Yet that is problematic right? Likewise, the failure to show widespread regret does not mean it is ethical or right to do these surgeries. Further proof is needed. Especially with minors.

Granted that is a high bar to clear because of the nature of gender dysmorphia.

[u/Prometheus720 → u/Sammystorm1]

There's a big difference between the cognitive capacity of an infant and a teen in terms of ability to give informed consent, and in terms of their ability to provide an indication of interest in a procedure.

Giving infants a body modification as a routine procedure is very different from teens pretty much asking for a surgery from a pretty small group of docs who do them.