comparative evaluation of soft and hard splints in treatment of clenching disorder

Introduction: the aim of this study was to compare the efficiency of soft and hard splints in treating patients with clenching. materials and methods: in this clinical study, 26 patients with clenching disorder randomly divided to two equal group of treatment: hard and soft splint. the amount of masticatory muscle pain and maximum mouth opening were measured at the delivery time and 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks later by a blind examiner. data were analyzed by independent t and repeated measure anova tests with significance level of p=0.05. results: hard and soft splints were resulted in significant reduction of masticatory muscle pain (hard: p<0.001, soft: p<0.001) and increase in maximum opening (hard p<0.001, soft p<0.003), but there was no significant difference between them in pain relieving (p=0.848) and maximum opening (p=0.622). conclusion: this study showed that efficacy of hard and soft splints in treating patients with clenching is same.