Subjective Sleep Quality in Temporomandibular Disorder Patients and Association with Disease Characteristics and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life.

AIMS

To measure sleep quality in temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients, to compare it with that of control subjects, and to analyze its association with disease characteristics and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL).

METHODS

The collected data included demographics, tobacco use, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), trauma history, presence of coexisting headaches and/or body pain, parafunctional habits, pain scores, muscle tenderness to palpation scores, and the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14). Differences between groups were examined with Pearson chi-square test for categorical variables and independent t test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) for numeric variables. Significant differences were then further tested with multivariate backward stepwise linear regression analysis.

RESULTS

The final analysis was performed on 286 individuals (187 TMD patients and 99 controls). Poor sleep (PSQI global score > 5) was exhibited in 43.3% of the TMD group and in 28.3% of the control group (P = .013) (mean ± standard deviation [SD] PSQI score = 5.53 ± 2.85 for TMD patients and 4.41 ± 2.64 for controls, P = .001). TMD patients had significantly worse scores in the sleep quality component of the PSQI questionnaire (P = .006). Higher PSQI global scores and poor sleep were positively associated with whiplash history (P = .009 and P = .004, respectively), coexisting headaches (P = .005 and P = .002), body pain (P = .001 and P < .001), clenching habit (P = .016 and P = .006), reduced unassisted (P = .014 and P = .042) and assisted (P = .005 and P = .006) mouth opening, higher muscle tenderness scores, higher pain scores, and higher OHIP-14 global and dimension scores.

CONCLUSION

TMD patients had poorer sleep than controls. Sleep quality was positively associated with TMD disease characteristics, comorbid pain conditions, and poorer OHRQoL. Assessing sleep quality should be a routine part of the diagnostic work-up of TMD patients. A multidisciplinary management approach is needed to address all the factors-including sleep-that modulate pain experience.