Eficacia de un programa de intervención cognitivo-conductual para pacientes con trastorno temporomandibular: investigación de proceso en dolor crónico.

This research is aimed to approach the study for the temporomandibular disorders, adopting the contributions that, from the psychological field have been developed concerning this disorder. This approach has led us to consider the study of chronic pain. The thesis starts with an introduction to the temporomandibular disorders main issues, as the clinical definition, epidemiology, etiological hypothesis considered and the diagnosis criteria description. Moreover, the psychological issues, together with the common characteristics found in chronic pain and temporomandibular disorders patients are also introduced. Thus, psychological therapeutic approaches are discussed, considering the efficacy results shown in the literature of chronic pain, concluding about the positive results of cognitive-behavioural therapy in these sense. Therefore, our research aims to develop and evaluate a protocol based in the cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic pain, for the treatment of temporomandibular disorders patients trying to reduce part of the limitations and bias of previous investigations. The results show the efficacy of this protocol in the post-treatment and follow up date; the intervention variables explaining the improvement obtained by the patients, and also the effect of other variables, such as personality factors, in the therapy outcomes.