Correlation between Burning Mouth Syndrome and Psychological Symptoms in Patients Attending to Zahedan Dental School

Burning mouth syndrome is characterized by an oral burning sensation, usually in the absence of clinical and laboratory findings. BMS is estimated to involve 1 to 5% of the adult population and is mostly reported within middle-aged women. The etiology of this disease is not thoroughly identified yet and there is a debate over the significance of Psychological factors in creating BMS. This study intended to examine the relationship between psychological factors with pain reports and psychosocial profiles of BMS patients to determine whether psychological factors are related to pain reports and burning mouth of patients. Therefore frequencies of psychological factors were analyzed. 30 patients with BMS participated in this study. They were homogenous regarding age, sex with the control group. In addition, education was possibly homogenized. The participants completed SCL-90 questionnaire for their anxiety, depression, somatic and psychotic symptoms to be scrutinized. Then, t-test was applied to analyze the research data. Mean of anxiety(case20/8, control 9/53), depression(case 26/53, control 13/40), somatic(case 23/7, control 15/26) and psychotic(case 19/60, control 8/10) symptoms were higher in BMS group rather than in control groups. T-test results indicated there was no statically significant difference between BMS and control group in regard to psychological symptoms(p< 0.0001). The study findings indicate that psychological disorders may predispose the patients to the development of BMS.