Assessing Dissociation In Craniomandibular Disorders Individuals: Use of Antianxiety and Antidepressant Drugs

Abstract

Objective. Develop a system to classify frequency of dissociation in CMD/bruxers, and evaluate the use of antianxiety and antidepres­sant drugs. Method. History of sign/symptoms, clinical examina­tion, muscle /joint palpation, criteria for Craniomandibular disorders (CMDs), severities of bruxing behavior, and the Dissociative Experi­ence Scale (DES), in 243 CMD individuals and 43 controls. A sys­tem with scores from 0-10%, 11-19%, 20-29%, 30-39% and 40% or higher was used to classify CMD individuals and controls as present­ing no, mild, moderate, severe and very severe dissociation. Results. 73,3% and 30,2% CMD and non CMD controls subjects, respec­tively, demonstrated some degree of dissociation (p<0.0001). Mild and moderate dissociation (55% , 24,2%) occurred more frequently as compared to severe and very severe dissociation (11,8, 9%), in the CMD group. CMD and dissociation individuals demonstrated great­er use of antianxiety but not antidepressant drugs than those without ( 31%, 11,4%, p=0.04) and (62%, 40%, p=0,32). Use of antianxiety and antidepressant drugs increased with the severity of dissociation (p=0,009, p=0.04). Conclusions. Dissociation in CMD/bruxing be­havior individuals varied greatly, mild and moderate dissociation oc­curred more frequently, and antidepressants rather than antianxiety drugs were used more frequently in CMD and dissociation patients than in those CMD without dissociation.