Quick Poll Results: Current Practice Patterns in Managing Chronic TMD-Related Pain

• Quick Polls Insights

Author: Rahma Mungia, BDS, MSc, DDPHRCS

Introduction

Many of you see adults with chronic pain related to temporomandibular disorders (TMDs), a condition that can limit jaw function, daily activities, and quality of life. This Quick Poll from the Network asked how often you see these patients, which approaches you recommend, how you view patient education and self-management, how often you coordinate care with other providers, and whether you would join a future study. The data offer a preliminary snapshot of how responding Network practitioners manage chronic TMD-related pain in routine care.

Key highlights

• Most dental providers (75%) see adults with chronic TMD-related pain at least several times per month
• Most (78%) consider patient education and self-management the foundation of treatment (37%) or one of several key components (41%)
• Patient education and self-management (75%) and occlusal splints or other intraoral appliances (71%) are the most commonly reported initial approaches
• 58% coordinate care with medical or behavioral health providers routinely (19%) or occasionally (39%), while 37% do so rarely (24%) or never (13%)
• 62% showed research interest on this topic (combining “moderately,” “very,” and “extremely interested”)

Chronic TMD-related pain is a routine part of practice for three in four dental providers

Among the 297 dental providers who responded to the Quick Poll, 75% see adults with chronic TMD-related pain at least several times per month. Eleven percent reported seeing these patients daily or almost daily, 18% several times per week, and 46% several times per month. Another 23% reported seeing them rarely.

Most dental providers place patient education and self-management at the center of care

Thirty-seven percent considered patient education and self-management the foundation of treatment, and 41% considered them one of several key components. Eighteen percent viewed them as secondary to other treatments such as splints or medications, and 2% rarely or never emphasized them. The poll did not assess the content, format, or intensity of the self-management strategies providers offer.

Providers combine education-based care with appliances, with medication and referral used less often

Respondents most often selected patient education and self-management (75%) and occlusal splints or other intraoral appliances (71%) as initial approaches. Short-term pharmacologic therapy followed at 51%, and 33% referred patients to physical therapy or other rehabilitation services. Fewer reported referral to oral and maxillofacial surgery (16%), injection therapy (11%), or psychological or behavioral health support (7%). Because respondents could select more than one option, these figures show the range of strategies in use and not a single treatment pathway.

Care coordination is common, but more than a third of providers rarely or never do it

Fifty-eight percent of respondents coordinate TMD care with medical or behavioral health providers, with 19% doing so routinely and 39% occasionally. In contrast, 24% reported rarely coordinating care, 13% reported never doing so, and 2% reported that coordination was not applicable to their practices.

What This Means for Our Network

These Quick Poll findings show that you are already managing chronic TMD-related pain in routine care, most often with patient education, self-management, and intraoral appliances, and that coordination with other providers varies across practices. This gives our Network a clear opportunity to develop studies that examine which approaches work best for which patients, how you sequence them, and how coordination happens in different settings. Stay tuned to the Network blog at www.nationaldentalpbrn.org/blog for updates as we use these results to shape future observational and intervention studies.

Click here to view a list of all of our past Quick Polls and their results.