A survey on the potential relationships between TMD,possible sleep bruxism,unilateral chewing,and occlusal factors in Turkish university students

Objective: To evaluate whether there is a relationship between possible sleep bruxism (PSB), temporomandibular disorders (TMD), unilateral chewing (UC), and occlusal factors in university students recruited from Cumhuriyet University in Turkey.

Methods: For this cross-sectional survey, 519 (223 males, mean age 21.57 ± 2.3 years, 296 females, mean age 21.02 ± 2 years) university students who admitted to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology of the Faculty of Dentistry, Cumhuriyet University for dental care between 2012 and 2014 were selected randomly. Students were asked to complete a questionnaire form including questions about TMD, PSB and UC. Presence and direction of malocclusion were recorded during clinical examination. Chi-square test was used for statistical analysis.

Results: It was found that 96.6% of the students with PSB had TMD (p < 0.05). The prevalence of severe TMD was high among students with PSB. There was a significant association between UC, PSB and TMD (p < 0.05). No statistically significant association was found between occlusal factors and PSB and TMD (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: Sleep bruxism, which heavily depends on self-report, is significantly associated with TMD. Unilateral chewing seems to be a common factor for development of SB and TMD. However, further studies are needed to corroborate this finding. Additionally, this study supports the hypothesis that occlusal factors are not related to self-reported sleep bruxism.