The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on teeth grinding in the US and UK

Background: Preliminary evidence suggests that the burden of stress and anxiety may have considerably increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Since these two mental health-related factors are important causes of teeth grinding, we carried out an infodemiological analysis to define whether the burden of teeth grinding may have increased as a consequence of COVID-19. Methods: We conducted an electronic search in Google Trends, with the term “teeth grinding”, setting the geographical area to “US” or “UK” and the search period between July 2017 and July 2022. The weekly Google Trends score for “teeth grinding was downloaded, and the difference in the volume Google searches for “teeth grinding” was compared between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods in both countries. Results: The median value of weekly Google Trends score for “teeth grinding” was found to be significantly increased after emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic both in the UK (57 with interquartile range [IQR] 51-64 vs. 48 with IQR 42-53; +19% and P<0.001) and the US (78 with IQR 73-83 vs. 70 with IQR 66-74; +11% and P<0.001), compared to the homologous period before. Conclusion: The results of this infodemiological analysis reveal that the volume of Web searches for “teeth grinding” in both the UK and US has considerably increased after emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus probably reflecting an increased burden of this condition in the general population.