Mood and anxiety psychopathology and temporomandibular disorder: a spectrum approach

Psychological factors play an important role in the aetiopathogenesis of
temporomandibular disorders (TMD), as demonstrated by an increase in stress,
anxiety, depression and somatization in TMD patients. The aim of this work was to
investigate the presence of mood and panic-agoraphobic symptoms in different
groups of TMD patients by means of a spectrum approach to psychopathology. A
total of 131 subjects were included in this study and TMD signs and symptoms were
investigated by means of a standardized clinical examination. Two self-report
questionnaires were used to evaluate mood (MOODS-SR) and panic-agoraphobic
(PAS-SR) spectrum. anova and Bonferroni's post hoc test for multiple comparisons
were used to compare mean scores of all TMD groups for MOODS-SR, PAS-SR and all
their domains. Results revealed a significantly higher prevalence of both mood (P
< 0.001) and panic-agoraphobic (P < 0.01) symptoms in myofascial pain patients
than in all other diagnostic groups (TMD-free, disc displacement and joint
disorders). With regard to mood spectrum, strong differences emerged for all
domains evaluating depressive symptoms. As for the panic-agoraphobic spectrum,
myofascial pain patients differed from the other groups for the presence of
stress sensitivity, panic, separation anxiety, hypochondriac and agoraphobic
symptoms. It was concluded that myofascial pain patients differed from those with
disc displacement, joint disorders and no TMD in relation to some
psychopathological symptoms, while the last three groups presented very similar
profiles.