Alolaiwi Lubna A, Alzahrani Fawziah A, AlShammari Sulaiman A
Department of Dental Public Health, College of Medicine and Dentistry, Riyadh Elm University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Family and Community Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Front Public Health. 2025 May 9;13:1553541. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1553541. eCollection 2025.
Scuba diving is a popular recreational activity. However, it carries inherent risks, including exposure to hyperbaric environments, which can exacerbate medical conditions, such as dental barotrauma, barodontalgia, temporomandibular disorders, and periodontal issues. Understanding the prevalence of orofacial pain among divers is critical for improving diver safety and health. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the occurrence and contributing factors of orofacial pain in various diver populations to inform targeted preventive strategies.
A systematic literature search was conducted across PubMed, Saudi Digital Library, and Google Scholar, and articles that studied orofacial pain among divers were selected. The Joanna Briggs Institute was used to assess the risk of bias. Due to insufficient statistical data (e.g., confidence intervals, standard errors) and extremely high heterogeneity ( values of 97.23% for barodontalgia and 98.03% for dental barotrauma), a meta-analysis was deemed inappropriate, a synthesis without meta-analysis was conducted to assess the prevalence of various types of orofacial pain across diverse diver populations.
This review included seven studies that examined orofacial pain prevalence and some risk factors (e.g., diving depth, frequency, occupational duration, and oral health condition) among military, occupational, and recreational divers. Barodontalgia had the highest prevalence rate among the four types of orofacial pain studied in this review, ranging from 10.8% to 56.1%, whereas periodontal issues showed the lowest rate, ranging from 2.8 to 6.6%, and were the least frequently studied type of pain. Military divers were most affected by all types of pain.
This study underscores the necessity of tailored preventive strategies for divers, particularly military and leisure divers. These strategies should focus on dental care, ergonomic interventions, oral hygiene education, equipment fitting, and clenching management.
水肺潜水是一项广受欢迎的休闲活动。然而，它存在一些固有风险，包括暴露于高压环境中，这可能会加重一些疾病状况，如牙气压伤、航空牙痛、颞下颌关节紊乱和牙周问题。了解潜水员中口面部疼痛的患病率对于提高潜水员的安全性和健康状况至关重要。因此，本研究旨在调查不同潜水人群中口面部疼痛的发生情况及影响因素，以为针对性的预防策略提供依据。
在PubMed、沙特数字图书馆和谷歌学术上进行了系统的文献检索，并选取了研究潜水员口面部疼痛的文章。采用乔安娜·布里格斯研究所的方法评估偏倚风险。由于统计数据不足（如置信区间、标准误差）以及异质性极高（航空牙痛的异质性值为97.23%，牙气压伤的异质性值为98.03%），认为进行荟萃分析不合适，因此进行了无荟萃分析的综合分析，以评估不同潜水人群中各种类型口面部疼痛的患病率。
本综述纳入了七项研究，这些研究调查了军事、职业和休闲潜水员中口面部疼痛的患病率以及一些风险因素（如潜水深度、频率、职业时长和口腔健康状况）。在本综述研究的四种口面部疼痛类型中，航空牙痛的患病率最高，为10.8%至56.1%，而牙周问题的患病率最低，为2.8%至6.6%，且是研究最少的疼痛类型。军事潜水员受所有类型疼痛的影响最大。
本研究强调了为潜水员，特别是军事潜水员和休闲潜水员制定针对性预防策略的必要性。这些策略应侧重于牙齿护理、人体工程学干预、口腔卫生教育、设备适配和咬紧管理。
