THE
BRUXISM SCREENER

Underlying safe and effective management strategies for bruxism is an Accurate (reliable and valid), Applicable (feasible), Affordable (cost-effective), and Accessible (suitable for everyday clinical use) assessment of bruxism (see the A4 principle as outlined by Lobbezoo et al., 2018). To that end, in 2020, a roadmap was published for the development of a Standardized Tool for the Assessment of Bruxism (STAB). This roadmap was the necessary next step after the publication of two international consensus papers on the definition and assessment of bruxism. The STAB was finalized by a group of international bruxism experts, based on the outcomes of a series of consensus meetings organized by the International Network for Orofacial Pain and Related Disorders Methodology (INfORM) of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) (Manfredini et al., 2023).

The future STAB and its toolbox will allow a comprehensive assessment of individuals with possible bruxism, along with the activity’s possible consequences, causes, and comorbidities. However, it must be remarked that the system cannot fully meet the above-explained A4 principle for assessment tools.

For that reason, as a parallel track alongside the development of the comprehensive STAB, the Bruxism Screener (BruxScreen) has been developed to be used in large-scale epidemiological research projects and, especially, in general dental practices. Depending on the outcome of the assessment with the BruxScreen, clinicians may choose to either assess the bruxism condition more extensively using the comprehensive STAB or to proceed with the management of the detected bruxism and/or its consequences, whenever indicated. The development of the BruxScreen and the outcomes of the pilot testing phase and face validity assessment were described by Lobbezoo et al. (2023). The first impressions of the tool indicate that it adequately reflects the construct to be measured, thus making the tool ready for more profound psychometric testing in the general dental setting.

In this area of the website, the literature on BruxScreen as well as the full instrument can be downloaded.