The Effectiveness of Orofacial Pain Therapy in Indonesia: A Cross-Sectional Study

OBJECTIVE(S): As the most complained oral problems in Indonesia, the therapy of orofacial pain has to be constantly evaluated. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of orofacial pain therapy in Indonesia. METHOD(S): This study recruited 5412 (3816 female; 1596 male) participants from 27 districts in West Java province. Half of the participants (2714) were recruited from those who were treated at community health centers whilst the rest were those who were treated at private dental clinics. A Likert-scale questionnaire that consists of nine questions that were divided to three subsections was used. The first subsection of the questionnaire evaluated the participants' post-therapy basic oral functions (three questions), and the second part evaluated the participants' post-therapy pain intensity and frequency (three questions), whilst the last part evaluated the participants' post-therapy activities (three questions). All data were then cross-tabulated and correlated by using Spearman correlation. RESULT: The current study revealed that out of 5412 participants, 4023 (74.33%) participants claimed that the therapy has enabled them to perform their work activity as usual, whilst 2576 (59.2%) claimed that the therapy has decreased the intensity of the pain moderately. A significant (p < 0.01) correlation (r = 0.1) between the type of dental facility visited and the total score of the therapy effectiveness was revealed. CONCLUSION: The therapy of orofacial pain in Indonesian sample was proven to be effective. Further study evaluating the reasons underlying the current results is of importance.