The relationship between somatic and emotional stimuli : a com-parison between adolescents with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and a control group

The overall purpose of this study was to determine whether adoles-cents with chronic temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain are more sensitive to all types of somatic and emotional stimuli compared with a matched healthy control group. Sixty adolescents, 8 boys and 52 girls ranging from 12 to 18 years, participated in the study. Thirty of the subjects exhibited TMD, re-porting pain of at least 3 months duration. The age- and gender-matched control group consisted of 30 dental recall patients who re-ported TMD pain less than once a week. All participants completed a 40-item questionnaire comprising ten items each of pleasant and aver-sive qualities crossed with somatic and emotional forms of stimuli. The items, a selection of a broad range of familiar stimuli by a panel of experts, were rated based on intensity of experience (0–10, numeri-cal rating scale). Well-fitting items that formed a valid construct within each of the four domains were selected using Rasch analysis. The results showed that adolescents with TMD pain reported signifi-cantly greater sensitivity (p