Abstract:

Background.
Bruxism or teeth grinding is a not well defined etiology disease, which currently constitutes a serious mental health problem, so it involves both the dentist and the psychologist for treatment and care. There is not perfectly determined the influence of a stressful situation in it appearance and development, however, there are features that can be related to their presence.

Objective.
To determine the relationship between bruxism, stress and anxiety in college students of the Universidad Veracruzana, Engineering School, Veracruz region.

Methodology.
This work is an applied, descriptive, observational, cross-sectional, prospective study. We worked with a sample of 250 students aged 18 to 25 years old, Engineering School of the Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz region. It was applied a structured clinical history to measure the presence of bruxism and its manifestations, and two questionnaires to measure stress and anxiety.


Results, evaluation and conclusions.
A prevalence of 44.8% students in the sample examined bruxism was found. Although indicators of bruxism are not very high, a significant presence of wear and temporomandibular joint disorders was found. Also, the presence of headache in patients with bruxism and elevated 'moderate' anxiety, which impact on mental health was found. This revealed the need for orientation programs and prevention among the student community in order to help them to achieve a better life quality.

Therefore it can be concluded that:
• A significant part of the population studied was diagnosted as Bruxopatas, which is very young and this is a very important for the health of the economically active population in some years data, which was also presented regardless of gender.
• A significant relationship between bruxism and stress levels was found, where high levels played an important role in the presence of habit, in those subjects who reported headaches were also established.
• The presence of stress and anxiety in bruxism and no bruxism patients, did not represent a statistically significant data. Which leads us to the theory of multifactorial etiology and poorly specific to this pathology.
• The teeth were the anatomical structures most affected by bruxópatas, although there were also joint disruption and headaches, in which anxiety and stress are important data.
• The tooth wear alone does not imply the presence of bruxism nor headache, and joint pain.
• There is no pathognomonic sign or an inspection to specifically determine diagnosis and etiology.

• The presence of stress and anxiety in patients bruxism bruxism and no, did not represent a statistically significant data. Which leads us to the theory of multifactorial etiology and poorly specific to this pathology.
• The teeth were the anatomical structures most affected by bruxópatas, although there were also joint disruption and headaches, in which anxiety and stress if present important data.
• The tooth wear alone does not imply the presence of bruxism nor headache, and joint pain.
• There is no pathognomonic sign or an inspection to specifically determine diagnosis and etiology.

Keywords:

Bruxism, teeth grinding, oral health, mental health, stress, anxiety, occlusal wear.