Relationships of Stress and Coping Styles To Periodontal Disease: A Case-Control Study

Statement of problem: the effects of individual variations in coping strategies have been debated in studies of the association between stress and chronic periodontitis, with conflicting results. purpose: to investigate the associations between stress, coping styles and periodontal disease in a sample of iranian population. materials and method: forty patients with chronic periodontitis and forty control subjects with a healthy periodontium were enrolled in this study and matched for age and gender. participants were patients undergoing periodontal treatment at the department of periodontics, guilan university of medical sciences. a single examiner performed periodontal examination. psychological assessments, including the life events questionnaire and the ways of coping questionnaire were done by a second examiner; both examiners were blind to the study. bi-variate and multivari- ate logistic regression analyses were used to compare results for patients and control subjects. results: statistically significant differences in the problem-focused coping (p< 0.01), intensity of stress (p< 0.006), as well as escape-avoidance (p< 0.01), and accepting responsibility (p< 0.001) subscales were observed between the patient and control groups. multivariate logistic regression identified a negative association between periodontitis and tooth-brushing frequency (or= 3.3, 95% ci: 1.22- 8.69), as well as the accepting responsibility coping style (or= 1.5, 95% ci: 1.14- 1.98), and a positive association with stress intensity (or= 1.081, 95% ci: 1.023-1.143). conclusion: the results suggest that psychological stress associated with various life events is a significant risk indicator for periodontal disease. although statisti- cally small, there was a clinically important link between coping strategies and periodontal disease.