Surveys on splint therapy for temporomandibular disorders (TMD) -A comparison of chair time for TMD patients at university TMD clinics and private dental offices-

Abstract

Purpose: There has been no report on the chair time for temporomandibular disorders (TMD). The purpose of this study was to survey chair times for splint therapy at university TMD clinics and private dental offices.
Method: A survey on the clinical practice for TMD was conducted for 14 university TMD clinics and 33 private dental offices for two months. At both types of clinic, we investigated the chair time for each TMD patient who was selected for splint therapy, and compared the two groups in terms of the type of splint, the details of the chair time of each practical session (i.e. first visit, examination, insertion of splint, adjustment of splint, observation, consultation and so forth) and each chair time.
Result: There was a significant difference between the mean chair time between the university TMD clinics (hereafter "university group") and the private dental offices (hereafter "dental office group") (p=0.0005). The time for the first visit for the university group was longer than that for the dental office group (p=0.000029). There was no significant difference in the chair time for insertion of splint (p=0.137) and adjustment of it (p=0.482) between both groups.
Conclusion: This study revealed that it took a long time to perform the physical examination for both groups. In addition, 44% of the university group and 22% of the dental office group required over 30 minutes to insert splints. Furthermore, 48% of the university group and 33% of the dental office group required over 20 minutes to adjust splints.