A preliminary study on potential association between psychopathological status and rhythmic masticatory muscle activity of young patients with sleep bruxism in Tianjin China.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to assess the psychological status of patients with bruxism and to explore the potential relationship between psychological status and rhythmic masticatory muscle activity (RMMA), since the basic manifestation of sleep bruxism is RMMA.

METHODS: Twenty-five patients (nine males, 16 females, and mean age 27.84 ± 5.60) who self-reported having SB and 25 normal subjects were randomly recruited. Fifty subjects filled out the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) to assess their psychopathological status. SB was diagnosed by polysomnography (PSG), and RMMA was recorded based on the results of PSG.

RESULTS: In this study we detected 15.89 ± 4.23 RMMA episodes per hour in normal subjects, whereas 41.23 ± 16.78 RMMA episodes per hour were recorded in patients with SB, which was nearly three times of the former group with statistical significance (P = 0.001). Paired t-test revealed significant differences between SB patients and normal subjects in any of the SCL-90 subscales (P = 0.001). Regarding total psychopathological scores, 10 of the 25 SB patients endorsed scores higher than 160, and the positive rate was 40%. In addition, obsessive-compulsive behavior, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism were all statistically associated with RMMA (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: Within the limitations of the study, we found that patients with sleep bruxism tend to have poor psychological status, and obsessive-compulsive behavior, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism are related to onset of SB.