The reports of specific waking-state oral behaviours, including awake bruxism activities, and psychological distress have a dose-response relationship: A retrospective medical record study

ABSTRACT

Objective

To investigate if there are dose-response relationships between self-reported waking-state oral behaviours, including awake bruxism, and three indicators of psychological distress (depression, anxiety, stress).

Methods

The study sample consisted of 1,886 patients with function-dependent TMD pain. Relationships between six non-functional and six functional waking-state oral behaviours, scored on a 5-point ordinal scale, and the psychological factors were investigated using ordinal logistic regression.

Results

Mean age was 42.4 (±15.3) years, 78.7% being female. The odds of reporting the higher categories of non-functional oral behaviours depended on the severity of depression, anxiety, and stress. Most OR coefficients followed a quadratic dose-response distribution, the others increased linearly as the severity of the psychological scales increased. Almost no such associations were found with normal jaw function behaviours.

Conclusion

Within the limitations of this study, it may be concluded that non-functional waking-state oral behaviours, including awake bruxism, and psychological distress have a dose-response relationship, with higher levels of distress being associated with higher reports of oral behaviours.

KEYWORDS:

• Waking-state oral behaviours
• awake bruxism
• psychological distress
• ordinal logistic regression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.