Knowledge regarding avulsion, reimplantation and mouthguards in high school children: Organised sports-related orodental injuries

Purpose: To assess knowledge, awareness and attitude of high school children involved in various sports activities regarding avulsion, reimplantation and mouthguard use.

Materials and methods: An interview-based study was conducted among high school children in the age group of 8-16 years (n = 1105). A questionnaire was given to children and parents which included questions based on knowledge of children regarding avulsion, reimplantation, consequences of losing teeth, mouthgards and their usage and preferred media for tooth transportation. The research proposal was submitted to the ethics committee and the study design was approved. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

Results: Only 37.6% of the children knew that their teeth can be completely knocked out with injury and 20.1% knew that a knocked-out tooth can be replanted. The preferred media for tooth transportation were gauze/cotton (27.2%), handkerchief (17.5%), paper (14%), water (13.8%) and cellophane (1.3%), i.e. 81.3% of the children preferred dry transport media. Among the children playing contact sport, 53.8% did not know about mouthguards and the rest 46.2% knew about it, but most of them never used it.

Conclusion: Considering the lack of awareness among children, as well as the people around them, there appears to be a crucial need for education of public and to determine dental manpower and dentists to increase awareness.