Towards an optimal therapy strategy for myogenous TMD, physiotherapy compared with occlusal splint therapy in an RCT with therapy-and-patient-specific treatment durations

Table 1 Demographic and clinical variables before the start of treatment

	Compliers		Dropouts
	Physiotherapy	Splint therapy	Dropouts
Demography:
Number of patients [n]	37	35	18
Age [mean, yrs (SD)]	31.4 (9.6)	29.0 (9.6)	28.7 (9.0)
Sex [female %]	95%	91%	94%
With partner [patient %]	56% *n = 36	40%	50%
Housekeeping [main responsibility, patient %]	58% *n = 36	58% *n = 31	53% *n = 15
Outdoors activity [work/study; patient %]	83% *n = 36	82% *n = 33	69% *n = 16
Both outdoors and housekeeping [patient %]	47% *n = 36	57% *n = 30	36% *n = 14
Clinical data:
PM-patients [patient %]	69% *n = 36	82% *n = 33	80% *n = 15
Duration of PreTx pain [mean, months (SD)] *n = 17	25.6 (29.9)	18.2 (19.9)	27.3 (24.6) *n = 17
Duration of PreTx pain [median, months]	14	10	18 *n = 17
No spread of pain; only facial areas [patient %]	27%	34%	17%
Limited spread of pain; facial and neck areas [patient %]	5%	14%	11%
More extended spread of pain; facial, neck and shoulder areas [patient %]	68%	52%	72%
Predominant pain intensity, at the initial visit [mean, mm (SD)]	60.4 (22.4)	53.6 (13.1)	59.6 (18.8)
Predominant pain intensity, at start of Tx [mean, mm (SD)]	41.0 (23.4)	39.1 (22.5)	43.6 (20.2)
HR-QoL, EQ-5D [mean, utility value (SD)]	0.707 (0.202)	0.773 (0.176) *n = 32	*n = 0
Use of over-the-counter (OTC) medication:
Patient %	54%	39% *n = 33	67% *n = 15
Percentage of possible times of scoring [%-value, mean (SD)]	7.1 (9.9)^§	3.0 (5.2)^§ *n = 33	16.5 (19.7)^† *n = 15

dropouts: n = 10 for physiotherapy and n = 8 for splint therapy. PM, Post Meridian patients with a maximal VAS-score of pain intensity at dinner or bed time, from a pain diary [23]. Spread of pain, data from the Pain Location Questionnaire [23]. HR-Qol, general Health-related Quality of Life using Euroqol-5D (EQ-5D). Use of over-the-counter medication, data from a pain diary [23]. *cases of missing values with indication of the actual number of patients (n). Differences between groups were only significant for the use of OTC medication, percentage of possible times of scoring. (^§between complier groups, p < 0.05; ^†dropouts vs. compliers, p < 0.05). All variables were obtained at the initial visit, except for ‘PM-patients’ and ‘use of OTC medication’ which were obtained during 2 weeks before the start of treatment, from a pain diary, and for ‘Spread of pain’ and ‘HR-QoL’ which were obtained just before the start of treatment

ISSN: 1471-2474