Relationship of Occupational Stress and Temporomandibular Disorders by Measuring Salivary Cortisol and Immunoglobulin Levels in Iranian Dental Students

Background and aim: the present study aimed to investigate the relationshipbetween stress and temporomandibular disorders (tmds) by quantification ofoccupational stress using the dental environment stress (des) questionnaire aswell as measuring the stress markers in the saliva, including cortisol andimmunoglobulin a (iga), in fourth to sixth-year dental students of qom dentalschool.materials and methods: in the present study, 60 students were included. aclinical examination was first performed using the research diagnosticcriteria/temporomandibular disorder (rdc/tmd) criteria in order to determinethe temporomandibular joint (tmj) status, and then the des questionnaire wascompleted in order to determine the occupational stress level of dental students.finally, saliva samples were obtained from the students, and the levels of salivarycortisol and iga were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(elisa). independent t-test, anova, chi-square test, and pearson's correlationcoefficient were used for data analysis (alpha=0.05).results: the mean salivary levels of cortisol and iga were found to be 4.74 ± 2.80ng/ml and 220.26 ± 121.22 μg/ml, respectively. the mean des score was 2.48 ±0.58. of all students, 24 (40%) suffered from tmds. there was no correlationbetween cortisol and iga levels and the des score (p>0.05). no significantrelationship was found between tmd and salivary cortisol, salivary iga, or desscore (p>0.05).conclusion: stress is one of the most important causes of tmds. although salivarybiomarkers are known as useful markers for detection of stress in patients withtmds, this issue was not confirmed in the present study.