Effect of Pyschological Factors on Treatment Outcome in Temporomandibular Disorders-A Research Study
Posted May 01 2011 11:44pm
"TMD Treatment Outcomes: A Statistical Assessment of the Effects of Psychological Variables.
Steed Pamela A, DDS
Jour of Craniomandib Practice, (16)3: 138-42, 1998.
This study analyzes the degree to which pretreatment psychosocial factors (psychological dysfunctions and stress) effect outcome in 269 consecutive temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients at the completion of treatment. Employing the TMJ Scale, a validated measure of TMD symptoms, it is found that pretreatment TMD pain and overall symptom levels (excluding internal derangement symptoms) are weakly but nevertheless, significantly related to pretreatment psychological dysfunction and stress. However, the latter appeared totally unrelated to four treatmentoutcome measures. Additionally, the data supports the hypothesis that both initial and post- treatment intrascapular symptoms (TMJ Scale, Joint Dysfunction sub-scale) are unrelated to psychosocial factors. Data from this study call into question the value of categorizing the TMD patients by means of psychosocial "profiling" and "dual-axis" classification methods proposed by some researchers.