Pain and the quality of life in patients referred to a craniofacial pain unit.
Although there are reasons to believe that temporomandibular disorders and other facial pain conditions would have a major impact on the quality of patients' lives, only a small number of studies have attempted to address this in a systematic way. In this study, data on pain and its consequences were assessed for 121 patients making their first visit to a craniofacial pain research unit. The extent to which musculoskeletal and neurologically based facial pain compromised the quality of life was measured using the Oral Health Impact Profile, a recently developed index of the functional and psychosocial outcomes of oral conditions. The data indicated that facial pain had a substantial impact on daily life and that its most common outcomes were psychologic. When compared with a nonpain population, the extent of this impact was striking. There was a four-fold increase in functional problems such as difficulty chewing foods and a nine-fold increase in reports of depression. As anticipated, scores on the Oral Health Impact Profile were associated with the characteristics of the pain and diagnostic subgroups.
Murray
H
H
Community Dental Health Services, University of Toronto, Faculty of Dentistry, Ontario, Canada.
Locker
D
D
Mock
D
D
Tenenbaum
H C
HC
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005157:Facial Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018710:Pain Clinics; D011788:Quality of Life; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires