Abstract
Objectives The study aimed to investigate the psychosocial predictors of bruxism. The association of various psychosocial factors such as alexithymia, emotional processing, state and trait anxiety, and stress with awake bruxism was analysed. Methods The study involved 52 volunteers diagnosed with awake bruxism. The toolkit that was used included the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Emotional Processing Scale (EPS), the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and the State- and Trait-Anxiety Inventory (STAI), with independent individual psychological diagnoses being made for every patient. The results were statistically analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 24. Results The obtained data clearly show that psychological traits—both permanent dispositions (e.g., state anxiety and alexithymia) and temporary states (e.g., trait anxiety, emotional processing deficits, and psychological stress)—are significant determinants of awake bruxism. The percentage of explained variance indicates the presence of other factors as well. Conclusions Psychosocial factors such as state anxiety and trait anxiety, alexithymia, and perceived stress are as important as somatic causes in the occurrence and maintenance of awake bruxism. The profile of the obtained data suggests the possibility of preventing or minimizing the symptoms of awake bruxism through properly constructed psychoprophylactic interactions.
Highlights
Bruxism, a repetitive activity of masticatory muscles characterized by grinding or clenching the teeth, can occur during sleep (sleep bruxism(SB)) or during wakefulness (awake bruxism (AB))
Bruxism should be considered as a behavior that can be a risk factor for certain clinical consequences [2]. e epidemiologic characteristics of bruxism are not clear due to different diagnostic strategies and the investigation of nonrepresentative populations [2, 3]. e prevalence of “sleep bruxism” varies from 9.3% to 15.9% and the prevalence of “awake bruxism” varies from 22.1% to 31% in the adult population [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. e prevalence of generally identified “bruxism” has been reported in 8% to 31.4% of the population [10, 11]
(4) Sleep grinding: positive history of tooth grinding during sleep confirmed by the patient during interview along with the following clinical findings: noticeable tooth wear on the incisal surfaces of the anterior teeth or/and on the guiding cusps of the posterior teeth is method was used as we considered that the interview along with a clinical assessment of the most probable bruxism-related signs and symptoms may be sufficient to diagnose bruxism
Summary
A repetitive activity of masticatory muscles characterized by grinding or clenching the teeth, can occur during sleep (sleep bruxism(SB)) or during wakefulness (awake bruxism (AB)). The definition of bruxism was corrected by Lobezzo et al [1]: SB is a masticatory muscle activity during sleep (characterised as rhythmic and nonrhythmic); awake bruxism is a masticatory muscle activity during wakefulness (characterised by repetitive or sustained tooth contact and/or by bracing or thrusting the mandible). Bruxism should be considered as a behavior that can be a risk factor for certain clinical consequences [2]. E epidemiologic characteristics of bruxism are not clear due to different diagnostic strategies and the investigation of nonrepresentative populations [2, 3]. Widespread among populations and repeatedly investigated, bruxism remains an enigmatic disease with many of its aspects requiring further scientific evaluation [12,13,14].
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