Psychological Component in the Etiology of Geographic Tongue

¹ Division of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, and Departmnent of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

A possible psychological component in the etiology of geographic tongue was investigated by studying affected and control groups of University of Minnesota students and by comparing the prevalence of the disease in normal adults (the students), mentally ill adults, and mentally deficient adults.

A panel of 3 oral pathologists judged color slides of the students' tongues, and found that 11 students' tongues became more severely involved and 4 improved under emotional stress. This difference approached significance. The profiles of the mean K-corrected raw MMPI scores of the students with geographic tongue were generally higher than the controls, and several scales were significantly different. Only 1 of 9 male and 1 of 26 female controls had MMPI profiles suggestive of psychological disturbance, while 4 of 8 males and 11 of 27 females affected with geographic tongue had such profiles. The prevalence of geographic tongue was significantly greater among the mentally ill than among either the normal or the mentally deficient adults of the same sex.

This evidence supports the contention that emotional stress is a factor in the etiology of geographic tongue, but further investigation is needed to determine the relative importance of its role.