Desai Bhavik, Alkandari Naser, Laskin Daniel M
Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Oral Medicine Division, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
Resident, Advanced Education in General Dentistry, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2016 Sep;122(3):306-9. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2016.04.014. Epub 2016 May 12.
The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of information provided on websites of dental practices about the diagnosis and management temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) because patients often use the Internet to get information about their condition and to seek a practitioner for treatment.
A web search was done to identify the types of dental providers who advertise themselves on the Internet as "specialists" in the management of TMDs. Issues that were analyzed included their classification of these disorders, the presumed etiology of such problems, and the types of treatment offered.
Over two-thirds of the 255 dental providers identified who advertised management of TMDs on their websites were general dentists. TMDs were attributed to occlusal problems or malocclusion on 66.7% of the websites and were labeled as a single disorder rather than a group of disorders on 38.8% of the websites. Recommendations to treat occlusal problems or malocclusion to alleviate TMDs were made by 54.5% of the providers.
Since these findings are not in line with current concepts about TMDs, significant inaccuracies exist with regard to the diagnosis and management of TMDs on dental practice websites. Therefore, patients need to be concerned about the dentists they may select to get their treatment, and practitioners need to be prepared to deal with the issues raised by misinformed patients.
本研究的目的是确定牙科诊所网站上提供的有关颞下颌关节紊乱病（TMDs）诊断和管理信息的准确性，因为患者经常利用互联网获取有关自身病情的信息并寻找治疗医生。
进行网络搜索，以确定在互联网上自我宣传为TMDs管理“专家”的牙科医疗服务提供者类型。分析的问题包括他们对这些疾病的分类、此类问题的假定病因以及提供的治疗类型。
在255个在其网站上宣传TMDs管理的牙科医疗服务提供者中，超过三分之二是普通牙医。66.7%的网站将TMDs归因于咬合问题或错牙合，38.8%的网站将其标记为单一疾病而非一组疾病。54.5%的提供者建议治疗咬合问题或错牙合以缓解TMDs。
由于这些发现与当前关于TMDs的概念不符，牙科诊所网站上关于TMDs的诊断和管理存在重大不准确之处。因此，患者需要关注他们可能选择的治疗牙医，而从业者需要准备好应对信息错误的患者提出的问题。
