Epidemiology of chronic oro-facial pain

The principal aims of the present study were to determine, in an unselected general population: (a) whether chronic oro-facial pain co-occurs with other frequently unexplained symptoms (b) whether factors associated with chronic oro-facial pain are common across symptoms. A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted using 4200 randomly selected adults who were recruited from the age-sex register of a General Medical Practice in North West, England. The study examined the prevalence and co-occurrence of chronic oro-facial pain with three other chronic symptoms that are frequently unexplained: chronic widespread pain, Irritable bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue. Validated instruments were used to measure the occurrence of symptoms and to collect information on a variety of associated factors: demographic (age and gender), psychosocial (anxiety, depression, illness behaviour, life stressors and reporting of somatic symptoms), mechanical (teeth grinding, facial trauma, missing teeth and reporting that the teeth did not fit together properly). 2505 subjects returned completed questionnaires (adjusted response rate 72%). The prevalence of Chronic Widespread Pain was 15%. Chronic Oro-facial Pain 7%. Irritable Bowel Syndrome 9% and Chronic Fatigue 8%. The study found that 587 subjects (27%) reported one or more symptoms: 404 (18%) reported one symptom, 134 (6%) reported two, 34 (2%) reported three, whilst 15 (1%) reported all four symptoms. This study has shown that chronic symptoms (including Chronic Oro-facial pain) that are frequently unexplained co-occur in the general population and share common associated factors. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that chronic oro-facial pain may share a common aetiology with other frequently unexplained symptoms although this needs to be confirmed in a prospective study.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo