Assessment of self‐reported sleep disturbance and psychological status in patients with burning mouth syndrome

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the quality of sleep of patients with primary burning mouth syndrome (BMS) compared with a control group. METHODS: A total of 70 patients with primary BMS and 70 control subjects were enrolled in the study. The severity of pain was evaluated with a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Four validated questionnaires were used to investigate the psychological profile of each patient: the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (EES). RESULTS: Poor sleep quality was present in 67.1% patients with BMS vs. 17.1% in control subjects (P ≤ 0.001). For patients with BMS, total data resulting from the PSQI correlated with results obtained by the EES (P ≤ 0.001), VAS pain (P ≤ 0.001), localization (P = 0.01), HAD-A (P = 0.001) and HAD-D (P = 0.001). Logistic regression analysis showed that an increase of one point in each depression score (HAD-D) made the chances of PSQI 1.26 times more likely, with a 95% confidence interval (CI = 1.03-1.55). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with primary BMS exhibited significant decreases in sleep quality compared with the control group.