UI - 000128

AU - McKinney MW

AU - Londeen TF

AU - Turner SP

AU - Levitt SR

TI - Chronic TM disorder and non-TM disorder pain: a comparison of behavioral and psychological

characteristics

AB - The purpose of this paper is to determine whether patients with chronic temporomandibular disorder

(TMD) pain manifest behavioral, experimental, and psychological characteristics similar to patients with

other chronic pain illnesses. The Chronic Pain Battery (CPB), a multidimensional assessment tool for chronic

pain patients, was used to compare several important variables between 78 TM disorder (TMD) patients and

98 non-TMD chronic pain patients. The study found that chronic TMD patients had lower "usual" pain

intensity and suffering levels, fewer vegetative symptoms associated with depression, higher pain tolerance,

less impairment of activity, more hope about treatment outcome, lower health care system utilization, but

higher reported stress levels than non-TMD chronic pain patients. The two groups manifested no significant

differences in use of narcotics, sedatives, and sleeping pills; levels of depression, anxiety, somatization,

hostility, or psychoticism; illness behavior reinforcement in their social surroundings; or ratings of problems

with work, family, self-esteem, or suicidal impulses. These findings suggest that chronic TMD pain patients

(with a symptom duration of over six months) are behaviorally and psychologically similar to non-TMD

chronic pain patients, but that they differ in their perceptions of their disorder, rendering them less

handicapped by their problems. Psychological, social, and behavioral treatment methods useful for treating

chronic pain syndrome may thus also be applied along with dental therapy for optimal treatment of TMD

associated with chronic pain

SO - Cranio 1990;8:40-4