Factors associated with temporomandibular disorders pain in adolescents.

To gain a better understanding of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) pain in adolescents, it is important to study the factors associated with its presence. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate potential predictors for TMD pain in adolescents, thereby including a diversity of factors from the biopsychosocial model to determine the strongest predictors. The sample of this cross-sectional study consisted of 1094 adolescents. The presence of TMD pain was assessed using the RDC/TMD, Axis I. Apart from demographical characteristics, the roles of parafunctional habits, psychosocial aspects, menarche and other bodily pain complaints were evaluated. Single and multiple logistic regression models were used to identify associations between the predictor variables and TMD pain. Painful TMD had a prevalence of 25·5%. Logistic regression analyses showed that TMD pain was associated with sleep bruxism (OR = 1·8 95% CI = 1·34-2·34), awake bruxism (OR = 2·1 95% CI = 1·56-2·83), other parafunctional habits (OR = 2·2 95% CI = 1·17-4·08) and bodily pain complaints (OR = 5·0 95% CI = 3·48-7·28). Parafunctional habits and other bodily pain complaints may play an important role in the presence of TMD pain in adolescents. Of course, it remains unclear whether the observed associations between the investigated factors and the adolescent's TMD pain have a true causal linkage.

Correlation between self-reported and clinically based diagnoses of bruxism in temporomandibular disorders patients.

The present investigation was performed in a population of patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD), and it was designed to assess the correlation between self-reported questionnaire-based bruxism diagnosis and a diagnosis based on history taking plus clinical examination. One-hundred-fifty-nine patients with TMD underwent an assessment including a questionnaire investigating five bruxism-related items (i.e. sleep grinding, sleep grinding referral by bed partner, sleep clenching, awake clenching, awake grinding) and an interview (i.e. oral history taking with specific focus on bruxism habits) plus a clinical examination to evaluate bruxism signs and symptoms. The correlation between findings of the questionnaire, viz., patients' report, and findings of the interview/oral history taking plus clinical examination, viz., clinicians' diagnosis, was assessed by means of φ coefficient. The highest correlations were achieved for the sleep grinding referral item (φ = 0·932) and for the awake clenching item (φ = 0·811), whilst lower correlation values were found for the other items (φ values ranging from 0·363 to 0·641). The percentage of disagreement between the two diagnostic approaches ranged between 1·8% and 18·2%. Within the limits of the present investigation, it can be suggested that a strong positive correlation between a self-reported and a clinically based approach to bruxism diagnosis can be achieved as for awake clenching, whilst lower levels of correlation were detected for sleep-time activities.