Chart-documented masticatory muscle symptoms and pain-related temporomandibular disorder findings among entertainment professionals attending prosthodontic and esthetic dental practices: a retrospective matched chart-review study.

OBJECTIVES

Baseline jaw pain or fatigue that is not documented before aesthetic or prosthodontic treatment may later be misattributed to treatment and complicate symptom monitoring. This study compared chart-documented masticatory-muscle and pain-related temporomandibular disorder (TMD) findings in entertainment professionals and matched controls attending the same practices.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

In this 2-centre retrospective matched chart review, 250 entertainment professionals were matched 1:2 with 500 non-entertainment controls by sex, centre, examination year, primary visit category, and age (±3 years). The prespecified primary endpoint was a strict charted clinical construct comprising masticatory-muscle tenderness, preauricular/TMJ pain, painful or restricted opening, or clinician-documented myalgia, arthralgia, or TMD. Modified Poisson regression with matched-set-clustered robust standard errors estimated prevalence ratios within this selected clinic sample.

RESULTS

The primary endpoint was documented in 125/250 entertainment professionals (50.0%) and 154/500 controls (30.8%). The adjusted association was modest and nominally significant (prevalence ratio 1.23; 95% CI 1.01-1.49; P=.038), but would not remain below .05 after Holm or Bonferroni correction across four inferential endpoints. Duplicate abstraction showed high endpoint-level agreement (κ=0.917) despite moderate agreement for some component variables.

CONCLUSION

Entertainment-profession status correlated with more documented findings in this selected treatment-seeking population. Selection and differential documentation may explain part or all of the association; the study does not estimate occupational prevalence, risk, or causality. Its practical value is standardised pre-treatment documentation of baseline symptoms and function.