Dental Trauma Among Hockey Players: Preventive Measures, Compliance and Injury Types

To evaluate level of compliance and reasons for non-compliance with measures to prevent dental injuries among ice hockey players.

Ice hockey players participated in an online, standardized, cross-sectional survey that addressed demographics, use and reasons for lack of use of facial and oral protective equipment and past oral injuries.

Of the 169 survey respondents, 45.6% never wore a mouthguard, 23.1% always, 14.8% sometimes and 16.5% only when enforced. Major reasons for not wearing mouthguards included discomfort, impairment of function or seeming unnecessary. Over 57.4% of participants wore a full-face shield, 35.5% a half-face visor and 7.1% no facial equipment. Participants did not wear a full-face shield mostly because it hinders visibility. Past oral injury was reported by 31.4% of participants. The most common type of injury was laceration (61.5%), followed by contusions, broken and lost teeth. Of the injured, 57.7% were hit by a stick, 46.2% by a puck and 25% were checked by an opponent.

Compliance with wearing mouthguards and full-face shields is low because of issues surrounding player comfort, function and lack of visibility. Efforts should be made to work with hockey players and relevant industry to improve product design for protective measures and to enforce their use.

Reasons behind lack of protective equipment use by hockey players should be understood to enable dental professionals to communicate with patients and resolve challenges to the use of preventative measures to increase compliance and decrease incidence and severity of traumatic oral injuries.