Abstract
A total of 41 patients aged from 19 to 84 (mean 49.2) underwent behavior restriction therapy for oral psychosomatic disorders at Fukuoka University Hospital between January 1993 and April 2004. The therapy was provided for 19 patients with occlusal discomfort, 11 with atypical facial pain, 4 with glossodynia, 3 with halitophobia, 2 with oral dysesthesia, and 2 with odontophobia. Follow-up studies on 26 of these cases after 5 years classified their level of social adjustment on a four-step scale as good, adequate, fair, or poor. The results were considered good in 10 cases (38.5 %) adequate in 10 (38.5%), fair in 5 (19.2%), and poor in 1 (3.4%). Thirteen patients (31.7%) had begun to make needless requests for dental treatment again. These cases were difficult to deal with and prognosis depended on how well each patient had learned to cope with feelings of guilt at the time of therapy. To improve the prognosis, new strategies for reducing the recurrence of oral psychosomatic disorders and forestalling such patients' requests for unnecessary dental treatment should be established in the future.
