Medical conditions and body pain in patients presenting orofacial pain

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To verify the frequency of self-reported medical conditions and pain areas in orofacial pain patients, comparing them with patients from the routine dental care. METHODS: Data were collected from archives of the Orofacial Pain Clinic (Group A, n=319) and of the routine dental care clinics (Group B, n=84) at Faculdade de Odontologia de Araraquara, São Paulo, in Brazil. All individuals answered a standardized clinical questionnaire and completed a body map indicating their pain areas. RESULTS: The Mann-Whitney's test demonstrated that Group A presented a higher mean number of medical reports than Group B (p=0.004). In both groups, Pearson's correlation test showed that the highest frequencies of medical conditions were positively correlated to highest frequencies of painful areas (0.478, p=0.001 and 0.246, p=0.000, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Group A tended to report more medical conditions and there was a positive correlation between the number of medical conditions and the one of pain areas for both groups.