On‐line computerized diagnosis of pain‐related disability and psychological status of TMD patients: a pilot study

Abstract

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) is a collective term embracing a number of clinical problems, which involve the masticatory musculature, the temporomandibular joint or both. Virtually all theories dealing with the aetiology and treatment of TMD have recognized the importance of psychological factors. This paper reports the development of a computerized on-line program (NUS TMD v1.1) for the diagnosis of pain-related disability and psychological status of TMD patients based on Axis II of the research diagnostic criteria (RDC)/TMD (Dworkin, S.F. & LeResche, L. 1992. Journal of Craniomandibular Disorders: Facial Oral Pain, 6, 301), which was developed to redress the lack of diagnostic criteria in TMD research. Methods adopted by RDC/TMD for use in assessing Axis II status include a seven-item questionnaire for grading chronic pain severity, the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90-R) and a jaw disability checklist. A pilot study, based on 37 new TMD patient records, was conducted to study the pain-related disability and psychological status of TMD patients using this newly developed program. The mean age of the predominantly Chinese population (86.5%) was 32.19 years (range 20-72 years) with a sex distribution of 24 females and 13 males. Most patients (78%) had low disability, with 12 patients having low intensity and 17 patients having high intensity pain. Approximately 73% of the sample population were moderately or severely depressed. Patients that were moderately and severely depressed had significantly higher scores for limitation related to mandibular functioning than normal patients. The three most frequent jaw disabilities were: eating hard foods (84%), yawning (78%) and chewing (65%).

Influence of anxiety on temporomandibular disorders – an epidemiological survey with elders and adults in Southern Brazil

“…On the other hand, the date collection in this study showed strong association between TMD and psychological factors as higher levels of anxiety resulted in moderate and severe TMD with statistically significant difference. This result is in accordance with other studies and becomes very important the knowledge about the multifactorial aetiology of TMD which requires early diagnosis of psychological factors such as anxiety as it could lead to failure of conventional treatment for TMD .…”

Depressive symptoms in Asian TMD patients and their association with non‐specific physical symptoms reporting

“…At the initial appointment before undergoing treatment, patients used the NUS TMD v.1.1 to answer the RDC/TMD history questionnaire. NUS TMD v.1.1 is a computerized diagnostic tool based on the RDC/TMD (18). It allows for direct data input by patients/clinicians, chair‐side generation of Axis I and II findings, and automatic archiving of data in SPSS or other tab‐delineated format for data‐mining and global exchange.…”

Validity of a Mobile Application to Diagnose Temporomandibular Disorders

“…In clinical settings, the DC/TMD diagnostic process can be challenging for nonspecialists because of its unfriendly user interface, multiple steps, and time-consuming nature. To address this issue, one study developed a diagnostic tool in a checklist format [13], and many other studies tried to follow the DC/TMD format in a simpler manner [14,15] to facilitate a quick and accurate TMD diagnosis by increasing the number of clinicians who could manage TMD. However, the reality was that general practitioners faced limitations in making accurate diagnoses and treatment plans based solely on patients' symptoms, without specialized imaging equipment such as CBCT or MRI.…”