Inter‐relationships between pain‐related temporomandibular disorders, somatic and psychological symptoms in Asian youths

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>This cross‐sectional, observational study assessed the inter‐relationships between painful TMDs, somatic and psychological symptoms in Asian youths.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>Study subjects were recruited from a local Polytechnic. Pain‐related TMDs were established with the TMD pain screener (TPS), while somatic and psychological symptoms were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire‐15 (PHQ‐15) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales‐21 (DASS‐21). Demographic information, TPS, PHQ‐15 and DASS‐21 responses were gathered with the CDRSS system and analysed using the binomial‐exact test, Mann‐Whitney U test, Spearman's rho correlation and logistic regression analysis (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .05).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Data from a total of 400 participants were collected and examined. The “no TMDs” (NT) group comprised of 366 subjects (180 males; 186 females) with a mean age of 18.72 ± 1.49 years, while the “with TMDs” (WT) group consisted of 34 subjects (11 males; 23 females) aged 19.26 ± 1.89 years. Significant differences in median PHQ‐15 and DASS‐21 scores were observed between the NT and WT groups (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> ≤ .007). The WT group was observed to have moderate somatic symptoms, moderate depression, moderate‐to‐severe anxiety and mild stress. For subjects with pain‐related TMDs, correlation between somatic and psychological symptoms was moderate‐to‐strong (<jats:italic>r<jats:sub>s</jats:sub></jats:italic> = .55‐.69). Stepwise logistic regression indicated that somatisation and anxiety were possible risk factors for painful TMDs with odds ratios of 1.08 and 1.07, respectively.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>The prevalence of pain‐related TMDs was 8.5%. Subjects with painful TMDs had significantly higher levels of somatic and psychological distress. In addition, somatic symptoms were strongly correlated with anxiety and stress but less so with depression.</jats:p></jats:sec>