Personality, coping and atypical facial pain. Case reports

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Idiopathic facial pain is a chronic condition with unknown etiology and pathophysiology. Its diagnostic criteria depend on the exclusion of any somatic cause of orofacial pain. Several studies have investigated anxiety and depression, but there is a lack of publications about personality. The objective of this study was to describe three cases of patients with idiopathic facial pain that had their temperament and character evaluated in order to verify the relation between the findings with pain behavior and pain characteristics. The instruments used were a free interview and the Temperament and Character Inventory. CASE REPORTS: Case 1 was proactive and had high scores of cooperativity and self-transcendence correspondent to the well-coping behavior. On the other side, cases 2 and 3 showed similarities about their harm avoidance, novelty seeking and poor coping, correspondent to a self-protective insecure personality. CONCLUSION: These cases show the importance of personality assessment in order to determine coping strategies in complex chronic facial pain such as idiopathic facial pain.