[Questionnaire survey of dentists who made their own mouthguards].
OBJECTIVE
Most of the mouthguards on the market are inferior in fit and occlusion related to feeling and injury prevention capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to use appropriate custom-made mouth-guards. This research aimed to obtain data for the selection, improvement, and spread of mouthguards in the future. A questionnaire survey of dentists who had made four kinds of mouthguard was conducted in a mouthguard seminar.


METHODS
The questionnaire survey concerning "feeling", "difficulty of production", and "selection when considering use and spread" was done for four kinds of mouthguard. The evaluations were made using a ten-point method with the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U-test.


RESULTS
Concerning the feeling: The laminated mouthguard was evaluated the highest, followed in order by improvement type, vacuum, and boil & bite. Concerning the production: The evaluation differed from other questionnaire items. No significant difference was found among all four kinds of mouthguard, so there was no difference in the fabrication difficulty. Concerning the selection and spread: The evaluation was almost the same as for the feeling. The laminated mouthguard was assessed to be the best mouthguard.


CONCLUSIONS
The boil & bite mouthguard which is widespread was evaluated the lowest in all items except production. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage players to use an appropriate custom-made type in view of safety, wearing feeling, and dental occlusion.
Nakajima
Kazunori
K
Department of Sports Dentistry, Tokyo Dental College. knakaji@tdc.ac.jp
Takeda
Tomotaka
T
Ogawa
Tohru
T
Kawamura
Shintaro
S
Handa
Jun
J
Sato
Takeshi
T
Maeda
Masahiko
M
Shimada
Atsushi
A
Ishigami
Keiichi
K
D003815:Dentists; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D009064:Mouth Protectors / Q000592:standards; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires