Methods: 90 female patients participated in this research–60 had TMD.Remaining 30 presented a control group.At beginning of research,patients filled out a screening evaluation test to determine position in research group.Next step was RDC/TMD protocol,followed by psychological tests.:
Results: Patients' age ranged from 22 to 67 years,with average age of 38,5 ± 12 years. In statistical analysis we used descriptive statistics,Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of distribution fitting for psychological variables,t-test for independent samples,variance analysis and Scheffe post-hoc tests.By analyzing RDC/TMD protocol,following results were obtained: group I disorders (muscular) were found in 77,4% acute and 90% chronic patients;groups II disorders (disc dislocation) in 51,6% chronic and 36,6% acute patients, while 71% chronic and 76,6% acute patients had a group III disorder(arthralgia, arthritis, arthrosis).Evaluation of psychological status according to axis II. showed that 19,4% chronic and 26,7% acute patients present pronounced depression,while 33,3% acute and 48,4% chronic patients have high results of non-specific physical symptoms (somatization).Psychosocial dysfunction was noted in 26,7% acute and 22,6% chronic patients.Psychological tests show that chronic patients are more depressed and inclined towards somatization in comparison with acute; acute patients are more anxious in comparison with control, patients who state a higher degree of depression are more prone to somatization and have experienced more stressful life events in the past 6 months.:
Conclusions: After this research, it is clear that TMD etiology is multifactorial and unclear, while psychological factors play an important role in its genesis.: