The purpose of this retrospective study was to identify the subjective and objective characteristics of a population referred to a clinic for diagnosis and treatment of orofacial pain and/or temporomandibular disorders.
Beginning in 1993, 825 patients, consecutively referred to the University of Naples  Federico II , were examined and their records entered into a database. These data were collected by trained clinicians. Diagnostic subgroups were identified following the Research Diagnostic Criteria for temporomandibular disorders (RDC).
Seventy-nine percent of patients were female, the mean age of the sample was 31.3+/-13 years (range: 5 to 74 years), most of patients were between 15 and 39 years of age. Based on diagnostic subgroups, patients were divided into: patients affected with myogenous pain (59%), arthrogenous pain (13%), arthrogenous and myogenous pain (16%) and fibromyalgia (4%). Sixty-three percent of the sample reported recent headaches, 53% reported parafunction, and 28% reported a previous trauma. Eighty-one percent reported spontaneous pain, which was chronic in 83% of them. The majority of patients (78%) presented a relatively high cultural BACKGROUND.
These data appear to agree with other epidemiologic studies and depict the TMD treatment-seeking population as a predominantly female population during child-bearing years with multiple chronic pain complaints.