Comparative evaluation of soft and hard splints in treatment of clenching disorder

Introduction: The aim of this study was to compare the efficiency of soft and hard splints in treating patients with clenching. Materials and Methods: In this clinical study, 26 patients with clenching disorder randomly divided to two equal group of treatment: hard and soft splint. The amount of masticatory muscle pain and maximum mouth opening were measured at the delivery time and 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks later by a blind examiner. Data were analyzed by independent T and repeated measure ANOVA tests with significance level of p=0.05. Results: Hard and soft splints were resulted in significant reduction of masticatory muscle pain (hard: P 0.001, Soft: p 0.001) and increase in maximum opening (hard P 0.001, Soft p 0.003), but there was no significant difference between them in pain relieving (P=0.848) and maximum opening (P=0.622). Conclusion: This study showed that efficacy of hard and soft splints in treating patients with clenching is same.