Chart-documented masticatory muscle symptoms and pain-related temporomandibular disorder findings among entertainment professionals attending prosthodontic and esthetic dental practices: a retrospective matched chart-review study.

OBJECTIVES: Baseline jaw pain or fatigue that is not documented before aesthetic or prosthodontic treatment may later be misattributed to treatment and complicate symptom monitoring. This study compared chart-documented masticatory-muscle and pain-related temporomandibular disorder (TMD) findings in entertainment professionals and matched controls attending the same practices. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this 2-centre retrospective matched chart review, 250 entertainment professionals were matched 1:2 with 500 non-entertainment controls by sex, centre, examination year, primary visit category, and age (±3 years). The prespecified primary endpoint was a strict charted clinical construct comprising masticatory-muscle tenderness, preauricular/TMJ pain, painful or restricted opening, or clinician-documented myalgia, arthralgia, or TMD. Modified Poisson regression with matched-set-clustered robust standard errors estimated prevalence ratios within this selected clinic sample. RESULTS: The primary endpoint was documented in 125/250 entertainment professionals (50.0%) and 154/500 controls (30.8%). The adjusted association was modest and nominally significant (prevalence ratio 1.23; 95% CI 1.01-1.49; P=.038), but would not remain below .05 after Holm or Bonferroni correction across four inferential endpoints. Duplicate abstraction showed high endpoint-level agreement (κ=0.917) despite moderate agreement for some component variables. CONCLUSION: Entertainment-profession status correlated with more documented findings in this selected treatment-seeking population. Selection and differential documentation may explain part or all of the association; the study does not estimate occupational prevalence, risk, or causality. Its practical value is standardised pre-treatment documentation of baseline symptoms and function.