Factor Analysis of the Anamnestic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders

The conventional process to construct a sequential examination for TMD is based in an initial description of the problem and a consecutive validation of the correspondence between the new questionnaire and the gold standard, but, all those items, are really scoring what we want?, and, which dimensions are really involved? Objective: to determine the main areas involved in the anamnestic process to diagnose TMD. Methods: was developed in 260 male subjects between 16 to 25 years old. They filled a questionnaire conformed by 96 questions contructed from the basis of the TMJ Scale. We modify some questions adapting the questionnaire to the study subjects, the language, and a better way to access the TMD diagnosis. Every answer to each question was translated to a binomial possibility to structure the data. Subsequently, we use the Pearson Correlation Analysis to determine the presence of lineal correlation between our results. After that we execute the Factor Analysis with the Varimax Rotation Method. The goals of the Factor Analysis was 1) to exclude the items no related to TMD Diagnosis, 2) to create new items with a stronger relation, and 3) to interpret the dimensions involved for the questions in the anamnestic diagnostic process. Results: initially we reduce the initial 96 items to 61 at the end of the Factor Analysis. We create 6 new items from 13. The final number of Factors was 14, each one of them represented a different dimension evaluated in the anamnesis. Conclusions: The 14 dimensions are: 1)parafunctional habits, 2)presence of social stressors, 3)articular symptoms, 4)pain chronicity, 5)muscle related pain, 6)specific dysfunctional pain localized by the own patient, 7)chronic headache, 8)systemic compromises related to the condition, 9)multiplicity of the disorder, 10)articular sounds, 11)jaw pain associated to masticatory function, 12)masticatory compromise, 13)perception of jaw movement, 14)neurologic involvement of the disorder.