Sleep bruxism in adolescents: a systematic literature review of related risk factors

Abstract

Background: Multiple risk factors have been associated to sleep bruxism (SB). Nevertheless, there are still many unsolved issues concerning the etiology of SB that have consequences on the clinical management strategies.

Objective: Systematically review the literature to assess the relationship between risk factors and SB symptoms in adolescents (age 11-19 years).

Search methods and selection criteria: PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Oral Health Group's Trial Register and Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, LILACs, and SciELO were searched to identify all peer-reviewed articles potentially relevant to the review.

Data collection and analysis: The risk of bias was assessed according to the guidelines from the Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions, with reporting in agreement to the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines.

Results: Four out of the 4546 initially identified articles were selected. According to the grading of recommendations assessment, development and evaluation assessment (GRADE), the magnitude of agreement was almost perfect for all checklist items. Sleep disturbances, and snoring in particular, headache, jaw muscle fatigue, and tooth wear seem to be associated to SB in adolescents from 11 to 19 years old.

Limitations: Despite the large interest of the scientific community in the field of oral parafunctions, only four articles met the eligibility criteria. Furthermore only associations and not definite cause-effect relationships were highlighted in the selected articles.

Conclusions: Sleep disturbances presented the strongest association with SB while very few occlusal features had a moderate association. As a common sense the investigation of sleep respiratory disorders could be of great help in the management of SB in adolescents.