Dental trauma in contact sports: Promoting prevention and emergency management

Objectives: Promote wear of mouthguards amongst players of contact sports.

Raise awareness of advantages and disadvantages of different mouthguard styles.

Raise awareness of risks of not wearing mouthguards whilst participating in sport.

Promote a Smart Phone App providing guidance on initial management of dental injury.
Methods: Online questionnaires relating to dental trauma experience, mouthguard wearing habits and their perceived benefits were distributed to players at professional, amateur and school contact sport clubs throughout central Scotland.

An additional questionnaire was sent to referees enquiring about policies of mouthguard wear, dental trauma experience and its management.

Questionnaires distributed to players and referees also gauged interest in the use of Smart Phone Application (App) detailing the immediate treatment of mouth injuries.

A final questionnaire was supplied to GDPs investigating their experience in managing dental trauma as well as their promotion and provision of mouthguards.
Results: The pilot study identified questionnaire design flaws and the need for wider data collection. Consequently the questionnaires for the definitive study have been amended accordingly and distributed to a greater number of sports clubs. At the time of writing this abstract, data collection is ongoing.

Pilot study data revealed that players were more likely to wear mouthguards when playing competitive matches than when training. 39% of respondents had previous experience of dental trauma and 22% had required dental treatment following injury. A majority of respondents stated that they did not know how to immediately manage dental injuries, with 72% stating that a Smart Phone App providing guidance would be beneficial.
Conclusions: It is concluded that this study will help to increase awareness amongst sports club members of the risk of dental trauma occurring during contact sport participation and raise awareness of the preventive benefits of wearing a mouthguard. These factors combined with access through the ‘app’ to guidance on effective initial management of dental trauma will help reduce the incidence of sports-related dental trauma or improve the chance of survival of traumatised teeth through effective immediate trauma management.