[Psychological status in patients with temporomandibular disorders].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate levels of psychosocial incapacity in patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) by using the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90).

METHODS

Three hundred and thirty-eight patients who came to the Center for TMD and Orofacial Pain of Peking University School of Stomatology, from March to September of 2004 were included in the present study. All of them were evaluated by SCL-90. The one-sample t-test and multivariate analysis of variance were performed to find the psychological difference between the normal and TMD groups.

RESULTS

(1) There was a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) in the scores of Symptom Checklist 90 between healthy controls and TMD group, and TMD patients got higher scores on somatization, obsessive compulsive, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, psychoticism. (2) Twenty-three percent of 338 TMD patients had some psychological symptoms. (3) All patients were evaluated by analysis of reliability, and the reliability coefficients was 0.958.

CONCLUSIONS

The psychological problems of TMD patients should be emphasized and SCL-90 instrument was also suitable to screen the psychological symptoms of TMD patients in China.