Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD) are a collection of musculoskeletal disorders which affect the masticatory structures and have a multifactorial etiology. A biopsychosocial approach is recommended for the management of these disorders including different interventions like exercise, manual therapy and pain education. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of a full dosage mode pain science education program (2 initial sessions of 45 minutes) versus a fractioned dosage format (6 sessions of 15 minutes) combined with manual therapy and orofacial exercises on primary outcomes - pain intensity and disability - and secondary outcomes - mandibular range of motion, pain-related self-efficacy, kinesiophobia, global perception of improvement, empathy, knowledge about pain neuroscience, beliefs about pain, exercise adherence, and catastrophizing - in patients with chronic painful TMD. This study will be a randomized controlled trial with a sample of 148 participants. Individuals will undergo a screening process to identify those with TMD diagnosis according to the Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (DC/TMD), aged 20 to 60 years, of both genders, and then the volunteers will be randomized into two groups (G1: Full dosage mode pain science education program + Manual therapy/orofacial and neck motor exercises vs. G2: Fractioned dosage mode pain science education program + Manual therapy/orofacial and neck motor exercises). These volunteers will be recruited in the city of São Carlos, SP. The intervention will take place twice a week for 8 weeks, administered by a single therapist, each session lasting 1 hour. The primary outcomes will be pain intensity and disability, assessed using the numerical pain rating scale and the Craniofacial Pain and Disability Inventory (CFP-DI), respectively, and the secondary outcomes will be mandibular range of motion, pain-related self-efficacy, kinesiophobia, global perception of improvement, empathy, knowledge about pain neuroscience, beliefs about pain, exercise adherence, and catastrophizing, assessed using the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia for Temporomandibular Disorders (TSK-TMD), Global Perceived Effect of Improvement scale, Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ), CARE Empathy Scale, and Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). For statistical analysis, a Generalized Estimated Equations considering time and groups as factors will be used. A significance level of p\<0.05 will be considered.
age between 20 and 60 years;
painful TMD (confirmed by applying DC/TMD);
complaint of pain with a minimum intensity of 3 (on a scale of 0 to 10) present for at least 3 months;
fluency to speak and understand Brazilian Portuguese (Mini Cog instrument to assess cognitive capacity and the Cloze Test to certify textual reading comprehension)
history of tumors in the orofacial region;
central and peripheral neurological diseases;
uncontrolled psychiatric illnesses;
pregnant women;
Parallel
Fractioned Pain Science Education (FPSE)
BehavioralPain Science Education (PSE) will be administered in workshop sessions with interactive presentations, using different resources as metaphors and videos. It will be held in 2 sessions of 45 minutes each, covering 6 topics of Explain Pain and Explain Pain Supercharged books.
Full Dosage Mode Pain Science Education (FDPSE)
BehavioralPain Science Education (PSE) will be administered in workshop sessions with interactive presentations, using different resources as metaphors and videos. It will be held in 6 sessions of 15 minutes each, covering 6 topics of Explain Pain and Explain Pain Supercharged books.
Manual Therapy
Other interventionIntraoral temporalis release, Intraoral medial and lateral pterygoid (origin) technique and Intraoral sphenopalatine ganglion technique.
Orofacial and Neck Exercises (ONE)
Other interventionOrofacial Exercises: Mandibular body-condylar cross-pressure chewing technique; Post-isometric relaxation stretches-laterotrusion and opening (10 times/session; 10 seconds). Neck Motor Control Exercises: Bracing exercises (6 hierarchical levels - HL). Extreme range of motion exercises (stable spine). Cervical isometric exercises (5 HL) directly forward, obliquely, toward right and left, and directly backward (stable spine - elastic resistive bands). Functional training with elastic resistance and exercise balls on unstable surfaces (8 HJ). The progress in each exercise domain will happen when sustaining the contraction for 10 seconds, 10 times.
Change in Pain intensity
The Numerical Pain Rating Scale will be used to assess pain intensity in this trial. It consists of a sequence of numbers from 0 to 10, in which 0 represents "no pain" and 10 represents "worst pain imaginable".
Change in Orofacial Pain related Disability
The Craniofacial Pain and Disability Inventory (CF-PDI) is a self-administered questionnaire that measures the outcomes of pain and disability related to craniofacial pain. It demonstrated a good structure, internal consistency, reproducibility, and construct validity. Also, the Brazilian Portuguese version showed acceptable psychometric measurements. It consists of 21 items, with a score ranging from 0 to 63 points. Each question is scored on a 4-point ordinal scale, ranging from 0 to 3. A higher score reflects higher disability levels.
Change in Pain-Related Self-efficacy
The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) will be used to measure pain self-efficacy beliefs (ability to function despite pain). Each item is rated by selecting a number on a 7-point scale, where 0 equals ''not at all confident'' and 6 equals ''completely confident''. A total score is calculated by summing the scores for each of the 10 items, resulting in a maximum possible score of 60. Higher scores reflect stronger self-efficacy beliefs. In the study analyzing the measurement properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version, the reliability of the PSEQ was considered adequate (the correlation divided in half was 0.76 and the internal consistency was 0.90).
Change in Kinesiophobia
The kinesiophobia outcome will be measured using the Tampa Scale For Kinesiophobia for Temporomandibular Disorders (TSK/TMD-Br). This is an 18-item self-report instrument that assesses fear of movement. The version translated into Brazilian Portuguese, TSK/TMD-Br, has 12 items. Each item is scored on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from "strongly disagree" (score = 1) to "strongly agree" (score = 4). Responses are summed to produce a total score in which higher values reflect greater fear of movement (12-48 points) The TSK/TMD has good reliability (CCI = 0.66-0.83) and acceptable validity values (VISSCHER et al., 2010). Internal consistency analysis demonstrated adequate Cronbach's α values (\>0.70) for all domains and reliability demonstrated excellent ICC values for all domains (ICC\>0.75).
Change in Global Perceived Effect of Improvement
The Global Perceived of Effect of improvement has 11 points and ranges from -5 ("much worse") to 0 ("no change") to +5 ("completely recovered"). A higher score indicates greater recovery from the condition.
Status of Empathy with the care provider
The CARE Empathy Scale measures the degree of perception of empathy on the part of the patient, which can influence the effectiveness of the intervention. The instrument consists of 10 items, with additional explanations of colloquial language, aiming to facilitate understanding of the questions. The answers range from 1 "poor" to 5 "excellent". All item values are then added together, providing a final score between 10 and 50. The version translated into Brazilian Portuguese has a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.867.
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