The healing effects of facial BOTOX injection on symptoms of depression alongside its effects on beauty preservation.

[BACKGROUND] Beauty is closely associated with a sense of calm, confidence, and hope for a better life. Therefore, it is expected that improving the appearance or even correcting one's view of appearance can prevent depression and even improve different degrees of depression in individuals.

[AIMS] Investigation of whether using botulinum injections (a common method of improving facial esthetics) can improve the degree of depression in clients.

[METHODS] This prospective interventional before-after study was conducted on 121 consecutive individuals referred for beautifying the face. Before performing the interventional procedure by facial botulinum injection as well as one month later, the depression status was examined by the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI) questionnaire.

[RESULTS] The mean baseline depression score dropped from 18.9 ± 4.8 to 10.6 ± 2.9 during the follow-up time (P < .001). Using the multivariable linear regression modeling and with the presence of baseline parameters, the main determinants of improving depression score included young ages (beta = -0.541, P = .001), higher educational level (beta = 0.595, P = .015), and previous experiences of botulinum toxin use (beta = 1.072, P = .036).

[CONCLUSION] The improvement in people's moods along with correction of their facial defects following botulinum toxin injections would be expected.