Occupational Medicine in Private Portuguese Health: Prevalence of Temporomandibular Disorders

Objectives: The aim of the study was to: Establish prevalence of Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD); Establish the prevalence of the sub-groups of TMD ; Quantify and assess the severity of chronic pain in the population according; Compare the prevalence of TMD with the results obtained in other population groups studied.
Methods: A sample of 100 individuals who attended an appointment of occupational health at SAMS/PICS company was obtained in the region of Greater Lisbon and the South of the Tagus, after the approval by the ethics committee of Instituto Universitário Egas Moniz. The individuals were subjected to the Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (RDC/TMD) protocol. The collected data were divided and classified the individuals in specific subgroups in terms of statistical analysis we have used descriptive statistics and considered significant differences when the confidence intervals of the results of the two groups did not overlap (p ≤ 0, 05).
Results: With the RDC/TMD protocol - Axis I - it was possible to quantify the number of individuals diagnosed with TMD: Group I - 18% II.a - 24%, II.b - 0% III.a - 5% III.b - 1% and III.c - 7%.
Conclusions: These results were very similar to the very few studies with similar design but different from many of the published studies. The RDC/TMD protocol allowed to know the characteristics of pain and TMD contributing this way to typify the studied population.