Association of cheek-biting and depression

Objective: To determine the association between cheek-biting and depression in patients visiting dental clinics for routine check-up. Methods: The case-control study was conducted at Ameen Medical and Dental Centre, Karachi, from July 2016 to January 2017, and comprised patients coming for routine dental check-up with complaint of pain and burning in oral cavity. The subjects were divided into two equal groups of cases with cheek-biting and controls without cheek-biting. Data was collected with the help of a self-administered questionnaire and depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9scale. Those with score>19 were labelled as depressed. Data was analysed using Stata23. Results: There were 70 subjects in two groups of 35(50%) cases and as many controls. The mean age for the cases was 32.86±12.68 years and for the controls it was 34.23±14.47 years. Among the cases, there were 23(65.7%) females and there were 19(54.3%) among the control. Multivariate logistic regression showed depression was significantly associated with cheek-biting (p<0.05). Conclusion: Depression and cheek-biting were found to be significantly associated.