Alexithymic and somatisation scores in patients with temporomandibular pain disorder correlate with deficits in facial emotion recognition

Summary Current studies suggest dysfunctional emotional processing as a key factor in the aetiology of temporomandibular disorder (TMD). Investigating facial emotion recognition (FER) may offer an elegant and reliable way to study emotional processing in patients with TMD. Twenty patients with TMD and the same number of age‐, sex‐ and education‐matched controls were measured with the Facially Expressed Emotion Labelling (FEEL) test, the 26‐item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS‐26), the Screening for Somatoform Symptoms (SOMS‐2a), the German Pain Questionnaire and the 21‐item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD). The patients had significantly lower Total FEEL Scores (P = 0·021) as compared to the controls, indicating a lower accuracy of FER. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate significant group differences with respect to the following issues: patients were more alexithymic (P = 0·006), stated more somatoform symptoms (P