Awareness of tooth grinding and clenching from adolescence to young adulthood: a nine-year follow-up

Summary How bruxism develops from adolescence to early adulthood remains unclear. A previous database was revisited to evaluate the natural course of self‐reported tooth grinding and clenching among young Finns aged 14–23 using four assessments. Overall, the self‐reported frequencies of both grinding and clenching increased during the examination period: from 13·7% to 21·7% and from 9·2% to 14·8%, respectively. There were significant increases (without a statistically significant difference between genders) in both grinding (P = 0·002) and clenching (P = 0·015) between 15 and 23 years. A significant rise in grinding between 18 and 23 years was also found (P = 0·011). It is concluded that self‐reported bruxism increases from adolescence to young adulthood. Moreover, there are large differences between individuals, and fluctuations may occur in the natural course of bruxism.