ABSTRACT
Statement of the problem: In recent years, many Lebanese dentists reported an increase in night-time parafunctional activity of their patients. Purpose of the study: To investigate night bruxism awareness in a selective Lebanese population. Materials and 868 visitors of a shopping mall in the city of Beirut [Lebanon] were interviewed about their habit of clenching and grinding their teeth at night, and about their age and gender. Gender distribution was as follows: 530 females and 338 males, mean age was 34.9 [ +/- 11.6 SD] and 37.8 [ +/- 14.6 SD] respectively. Overall prevalence of bruxism was 35.8% for males and 32.6% for females with no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Bruxism was found to increase with age for both genders. Bruxism awareness per age and gender was as follows: <26 years [F: 24.1%; M: 19.4%], 26-35 years [F: 26.1%; M: 27.2%],36-45 years [F: 41.1%; M: 41.6%], 46-55 years [F: 41.5%; M: 50%] and> 55 years [F: 63.6%; M: 53.5%]. Night bruxism prevalence in this Lebanese group seems to be higher than in reported western studies and a deeper socio-economical investigation is needed. Future larger scale studies might be needed to confirm if bruxism awareness increases with age