The prevalence and association of signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorders with missing posterior teeth in adult Jordanian subjects

Abstract EN

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) in adult Jordanian subjects with missing posterior teeth and the association of signs and symptoms of TMD with missing posterior teeth.

Methods: A questionnaire and clinical examination were used to assess 93 subjects who accepted to participate in this study and were selected according to specific inclusion criteria.

They were asked about TMD-related symptoms (pain or tenderness in the jaw joint and/or muscles of mastication, joint sounds, limitation of jaw movement, clenching or grinding habits) and examined clinically for missing teeth, and for TMD-related signs (tenderness in masticatory muscles and in temporomandibular joint, clicking or crepitus sounds, limitation of mandibular movement, attrition in the existed remaining teeth).

The mean number of missing teeth were calculated, compared and correlated with TMD signs and symptoms in relation to age and genders.

Data were analyzed using SPSS (v.

17) and statistical significance was set at P<0.05.

Results: There were 37 (39.8%) men and 56 (60.2%) women; the mean age was 54.43±11.87 (ranged between 31 and 78) years.

Eighty-five (91.4%) subjects had TMD-related signs or symptoms, 32.3% reported symptoms and 59.1% had signs, two-thirds were women.

The mean number of missing teeth was 11.40±3.13, men significantly (p<0.05) had more missing teeth compared to women, however, significantly (p<0.01) more women reported TMD symptoms than men.

Posterior teeth loss increased with increasing age.

With age, TMD symptoms decreased and signs increased.

Logistic regression analyses showed that teeth loss was significantly associated with TMD subjective symptoms; reported joint sounds (p<0.05), chewing difficulty (p<0.05) and with chewing side preference (p=0.001).

Logistic regression analyses showed that teeth loss was significantly associated with TMD objective signs; clicking (p<0.01) and crepitus (p>0.001) TMJ sounds, unilateral TMJ tenderness (p=0.01), the pterygoid muscles tenderness (p<0.01) and teeth wear (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Loss of posterior teeth is significantly associated with TMD signs and symptoms.

In the group studied more women than men reported TMD symptoms and both male and female subjects were found to have TMD signs which were more common in men.