Anxiety mediates association between sex and jaw function limitation in temporomandibular disorder patients from China

AimThe objective of this study is to explore the relationship between sex and jaw function and to test whether anxiety mediates the causal relationship between sex and jaw function in temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) patients.MethodsA total of 488 participants with TMD were included in the analysis. Demographic data were collected. Generalized anxiety symptoms and anxiety severity were initially assessed using the GAD-7 questionnaire. And jaw function limitation was measured using the JFLS-8 scale. A directed acyclic graph (DAG) was used in this study to evaluate the hypotheses. Mediation analysis was conducted to explore causality and to calculate the total effect, natural direct effect (NDE) and natural indirect effect (NIE).ResultsIn TMD patients, there was a significant association between female and jaw function (r = 0.17, p