Functional, physical and psychosocial impact of Temporomandibular Disorders in adolescents and young adults.

BACKGROUND: This community-based study investigated the functional, physical and psychosocial impact of Temporomandibular Disorders (TMDs) in adolescents and young adults. It also determined the discriminative capacity of a TMDs-specific oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) instrument and compared three formats of appraising OHRQoL data. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Subjects were recruited from a local Polytechnic. The presence of TMDs was established with the Fonseca Anamnestic Index (FAI), whilst TMDs-specific OHRQoL was evaluated with the Oral Health Impact Profile-TMDs (OHIP-TMDs). Demographic information, FAI and OHIP-TMDs responses were gathered with an on-line questionnaire. Data was analysed using Mann-Whitney U-test, chi-square test and Spearman's rho correlation with significance level set at 0.05. RESULTS: Data from a total of 244 participants were compiled and examined. The "no TMDs" (NT) group consisted of 140 subjects (119 females; 21 males) with a mean age of 20.41+/-3.29 years, while the "with TMDs" (WT) group composed of 104 subjects (88 females; 16 males) aged 19.82+/-3.04 years. Significant differences in median severity scores were observed between subjects with and without TMDs for all OHIP-TMDs domains and total OHIP (p values < 0.001). For appraisal of extent and prevalence, significant differences were again observed (p values < 0.05) with the exception of the functional limitation and handicap domains. CONCLUSIONS: TMDs impacted physical and psychosocial well-being of adolescents and young adults. OHIP-TMDs, preferably appraised by severity, extent and prevalence, was able to discriminate between subjects with and without TMDs. It holds promise as a TMDs-specific OHRQoL instrument for epidemiological studies.