Masticatory ability with depression, anxiety, and stress: Does there exist any association?

Masticatory ability as a subjective response to masticatory function indicates patients' perception of their mastication. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no study on association between masticatory ability and psychological status. This study investigated the association between self-assessed masticatory ability (SAMA) and psychological status among a large sample of Iranian adults.

In this cross-sectional study, data were extracted from 4135 adults who had been completed information in 20 counties across Isfahan province regarding masticatory ability and psychological statuses (depression, anxiety, and stress). An SAMA questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and General Health Questionnaire were used to measure masticatory ability, depression and anxiety, and stress of study population. To analyze the data, ANOVA, χ(2) test, and multinomial regression were applied at 0.05 for the significance level.

Masticatory ability was significantly correlated with depression (P < 0.001), anxiety (P < 0.001), and stress (P < 0.001). The participants in high masticatory ability group reported lower scores for presence of these psychological variables. Furthermore, males reported significantly higher level for masticatory ability than females (P = 0.025). In addition, there were significant association between low and moderate masticatory ability with anxiety (1.09, 1.08), depression (1.15, 1.13), and stress (1.11, 1.09), respectively. The association was still significant after adjusting for age, sex, educational level, and marital status.

Despite study limitations, the results of this study provide evidence that participants with higher score of depression, anxiety, and stress suffer lower masticatory ability.