Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the compliance of children wearing their mouthguard and to assess environmental contributing factors. Method: Seventy-six children attending the student clinic of the Hadassah School of Dental Medicine received mouthguards free of charge. One year later, parents of 68 participants completed a questionnaire aimed at gaining information regarding compliance and comfort of use correlated with gender, number of siblings, socioeconomic status, education of parents, siblings' or parents' past dental injuries, ages of parents and child. Results: Twenty-seven percent of the children never wore the mouthguard, 35% wore it sometimes, 14% wore it constantly at the beginning but stopped after one month, and 24% always wore their mouthguard. Sixty-nine percent of the participants still had the mouthguard one year after receiving it, 2% lost the device the same week they received it, and 11% lost it a month later. Forty-two percent of the children reported that they did not wear the mouthguard because they forgot and 41 % reported that the reason for not wearing it was because the appliance was not comfortable. Conclusions: After one year, most of the children still possessed their mouthguard, although they did not wear it due to forgetfullness or discomfort. Most of the parents and the children were not aware of the existence of this appliance prior to this study since such treatment had not been offered to them by any dentist in the past.
The research is supported by the Municipality of Jerusalem