Anxiety in the face of covid 19 as a determining factor for temporomandibular dysfunction
International Journal of Development Research
Anxiety in the face of covid 19 as a determining factor for temporomandibular dysfunction
Received 10th September, 2022; Received in revised form 18th September, 2022; Accepted 21st October, 2022; Published online 30th November, 2022
Copyright©2022, Ana Jaqueline Marques et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The objective of the research was to assess whether anxiety can be considered a predictor of temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD) in health professionals who were at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. This is a cross-sectional quantitative study. The study included interns or health professionals aged 18 years or over, living in Brazil and working on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. The Fonseca Anamnesis Questionnaire, considered an instrument capable of characterizing the severity of TMD symptoms. For the inferential analysis, a regression with moderation was performed considering the independent variable anxiety; the dependent variable the diagnosis suggestive of TMD; and the moderating variable the use of the N95 mask. In conclusion, we suggest that anxiety can be a triggering factor for TMD signs and symptoms in healthcare professionals, and that this relationship can be enhanced by the use of the N95 mask. Thus, it is necessary to build strategies aimed at the mental and physical health of health professionals who are working on the front lines of combating COVID-19.
