Re: Exploring the psychological and social motivations for aesthetic treatments in the post-COVID era

We re-examined the study by Ashley et al. [1], which explored the psychological and social motivations underlying patient decision-making in aesthetic treatments.The authors noted that COVID-19 may have subtly shifted perceptions toward greater emphasis on social acceptance and appearance maintenance.However, the influence of social media has intensified recently, bringing this topic back into academic discussions on patient motivations and psychological readiness in cosmetic medicine [2][3][4].This timely cross-sectional research provides valuable self-report data as a foundation for assessing field progress and highlights the evolving challenges that clinicians face in supporting patients' expectations and psychological well-being.As aesthetic practice expands in this rapidly changing arena, we emphasize the importance of grounding clinical care and research within robust psychosocial frameworks.Since the publication of the study by Ashley et al.[1], noteworthy progress has been made in two key areas.First, larger multicenter and systematic investigations have documented the complexity of patient motivations for cosmetic procedures across diverse demographic groups.For example, a systematic review [5] of over 9,000 participants demonstrated that intrapersonal factors (e.g., ageing concerns or negative appearance selfappraisals), social network influences, and behavioral factors (notably media exposure) contribute to motivations for facial