Öz
The desire to undergo aesthetic surgery is increasing in our country as well as all over the world. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of social media use on women's attitudes towards aesthetic surgery. This study is a descriptive, cross-sectional design, and was conducted online between December 2020 and March 2021. The sample of the study consisted of 315 women aged 18 and over, who voluntarily accepted to participate in the study and actively used the internet. Participants in this study were divided into two groups as experimental (n: 157) and control (n: 158) groups. The data of the study were collected using the sociodemographic characteristics and the Cosmetic Surgery Acceptance Scale (CSAS). Landscape themed pictures in the data collection form of the participants in the control group; In the data collection form of the participants in the experimental group, pictures with the theme of women who had undergone aesthetic surgery were used. Descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to evaluate the data. Written permission was obtained from the non-interventional clinical research ethics committee of a university to conduct the study. The average age of the women included in the study was 31.3±11.5 and the mean body mass index was 23.2±4.0 kg/m2. 63.5% of the women stated that they wanted to undergo an aesthetic surgery. The mean CSAS total score of the control group was 46.4±20.8; the experimental group was determined to be 54.8±23.3. It was determined that the mean CSAS total score of the women in the experimental group was statistically significantly higher than the average score of the women included in the control group (p:0.002). As a result of this study, it was determined that following the pictures of women who have undergone aesthetic surgery through social media has a negative effect on the body image of women, thus increasing the tendency to have aesthetic surgery.