Prevalence of temporomandibular disorders among Palestinian medical students

Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) is a collective term that involves alterations in the temporomandibular joint, muscles of mastication and the occlusion. The TMD disorder is a common health problem which affects about 33% of the population within their lifetime. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of TMDs among university students in Palestine. The role of various risk factors in the etiology of TMD symptoms was also addressed. This is a cross sectional study based on a self-administered questionnaire. The study sample consisted of 416 dental and medical field students from all cities of Palestine studying at Arab American University of Palestine (with an age range of 18 – 27 years). In this study, 63.5% (n = 264) of the investigated students had at least one TMD symptom; clenching was the most prevalent TMD (35.6%) followed by joint noise (33.4%) while locked jaw was the least prevalent (10.6%) symptom. In the conclusion high prevalence of TMD among Palestinian medical students was reported, females reported more pain on TMJ area than males, age group (23 to 25) years reported more frequency of clenching than the other age groups, and strong correlation was found between stress, headache and TMD.