Temporomandibular Disorder among Women Who Experienced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder after a Miscarriage.

OBJECTIVES: This study intended to understand the risk of developing temporomandibular disorder among Saudi women who experienced a miscarriage. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two hundred and eight Saudi women from several hospitals' gynecologic clinics in two areas in Saudi Arabia were screened to fill out the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (self-reporting questionnaire) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder and a structured temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) Questionnaire (Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders). A single examiner did the clinical examination for temporomandibular joint (TMJ). One-hundred and fifty-eight of the participants were divided into two groups. Group A (85 participants) included females who had had a previous miscarriage, whereas Group B (73 participants) included females who had not had a miscarriage. IBM SPSS version 22.0 was used to conduct a nonparametric Chi-square test to find the significance of any observed differences. RESULTS: Almost 40% of the participants had symptoms that qualified for possible TMD. Around 73% of the miscarried Saudi women in Group A showed symptoms of TMD. Furthermore, approximately 38% of the participants in Group B developed significant symptoms of TMD. The Chi-square test (Chi-test = 22.03 with P = 0.0001) shows highly significant association between treatment groups (control and study) and temporomandibular joint disorder group and non temporomandibular joint disorder group. CONCLUSION: Women who suffer from spontaneous single or recurrent miscarriages are advised to seek a dental specialist for diagnosis and prevention devices such as a night guard.

Esthetic self-perception of smiles among a group of dental students.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this cross-sectional observational study was to assess undergraduate dental students' esthetic self-perception of their own smiles. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire consisting of two parts was distributed to 1400 dental students at all levels of study in the city of Riyadh. The first part was intended to measure students' self-perception of and satisfaction with their own smiles. In the second part, students were asked to rate the importance of specific features of an attractive face on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS) bar. RESULTS: The overall mean satisfaction index was 9.32. The participants in the intern group were the most satisfied with their smiles. The female students showed more dissatisfaction than the male students with their smiles. Among the facial features important to facial attractiveness, teeth scored the highest (86.54) on the VAS, and the rating of this feature increased in relation to academic progress. The ratings of female participants were higher than male participants for most facial features. CONCLUSION: Although the results indicated an overall negative esthetic self-perception among the dental students, their self-reported satisfaction with their appearance increased as they progressed academically.