Awareness Of Stress-Related Bruxism Among Medical Students

Abstract

Background: Bruxism is thought to be the grinding or clenching of the teeth without a goal-oriented purpose, either while sleeping or when awake. This study focuses more on the relationship between the stressors and bruxism according to the gender, personality trait and coping mechanism of stress in a population of medical students. Therefore, this study would pay special attention to spreading awareness regarding bruxism and the stressors to avoid the ill-effects of chronic teeth clenching or grinding. Materials and methods: The study was conducted through a validated questionnaire and a standardized Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10). 372 medical students were asked to fill the questionnaire and PSS-10. The sample population were selected based on their ages between 18 to 30 years of age. Result: The rate of awareness for bruxism is 24.1%, which consists of 28 male and 62 female participants. Similarly, the awareness rate for the ill-effects of stress on oral health is 43.9%(49 male and 115 females). Out of 372 students, 18 males and 47 females have bruxism, i.e. 17.4% . Total of 269 students experience stress, 82 are male and 187 are female participants. Conclusion: There is not much awareness regarding stress-related bruxism among medical students and there should be better knowledge about bruxism to avoid the adverse effects of stress and bruxism over oral health and temporomandibular joint. The relation between stress levels and bruxism was analysed and it concluded that the students with bruxism have moderate levels of stress.