Oral behavior checklist (OBC)

The OBC is a self-assessment tool designed for the evaluation of the frequency of different oral behaviors during the day or at night. It consists of 21 items, out of which 2 refer to night-time behaviors, while the rest refer to daily oral function. For each item, a participant provides an answer describing the frequency of this behavior: during the night (how many nights in a week such behavior appears) or during the day (none of the time/a little of the time/some of the time/most of the time/all of the time). For each item, a score of 0–4 points is assigned, yielding a total sum in the range from 0 to 84 points. The score is interpreted as follows: 0—no risk of parafunctional oral activity, 1–24—low risk of parafunctional oral activity, 25–84—high risk of parafunctional oral activity.

During the design of the study, the internal consistency, test–retest correlations and validity were found to be good, and the OBC is the tool most commonly used for the assessment of oral behaviors⁶⁷.

In this study, a score of 25 points or more was used as a cutoff value for a high risk of parafunctional oral activity.