Faculty of sports science students, physical education teachers, and athletes' level of knowledge and attitude about mouthguards.

OBJECTIVES: Traumatic dental injury occurs during sports competitions, training, and practice and can be prevented by the use of mouthguards. For this reason, this study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of sports science faculty students, physical education teachers, and athletes about mouthguards. METHODS: Five hundred thirty-two participants were reached via social media. In the questionnaire consisting of 20 questions, questions about the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants were asked in part 1, and questions about their level of knowledge and attitudes about the mouthguards were asked in part 2. Descriptive statistical analysis and a chi-square test were used to evaluate the data. RESULTS: The number of people who think that mouthguards protect the athlete from traumatic dental injury is 381 (71.6%). The number of people who think that mouthguards affect the performance of the athlete is positively 228 (42.9%). To protect against traumatic dental injury, 51.48% of the participants preferred the custom-made; 39.3% of them preferred the boil-bite; 33.22% of them preferred the standard/stock type mouth guard; and 22.96% of them preferred the helmet, and 18.26% of them preferred the face mask. CONCLUSIONS: The knowledge and attitude of sports science faculty students, physical education teachers, and athletes are low about mouthguards. Since these people who are engaged in sports have a high exposure to traumatic dental injuries, education should be given to increase their awareness about mouthguards.

Oral health experiences of Turkish children with acute rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease.

Purpose: Children with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) or using depot-penicillin because of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) are prone to the risk of infective endocarditis (IE) and poor oral hygiene. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate oral health experiences of a group of healthy children and a group of children with ARF or who were using depot-penicillin because of RHD (study group). Materials and methods: Medical and dental data of 86 children aged between 5-12 years were investigated in this study. Medical histories, decayed, missing, and filled teeth, plaque index, gingival index, toothbrushing frequencies, and the study and healthy groups' socioeconomic levels were recruited and examined. Results: The 'dmft' of the study and healthy groups were found to be 5.51±3.81 and 2.37±2.31, respectively, while the 'DMFT' of the study and healthy groups were 1.71±2.28 and 1.06±1.59, respectively. There was no significant difference between the gingival indexes of the study group 0.89±0.39 and the healthy group 0.62± 1.03 (p=0.112). Nevertheless, the groups significantly differed regarding the plaque index, which were 0.87±0.40 and 0.45±0.41, respectively (p<0.001). The tooth brushing frequencies in the study and healthy groups being twice a day or more were 23.3% and 46.5%, respectively. Conclusion: The children with ARF or using depot-penicillin because of RHD had more permanent and primary tooth caries and poorer oral health than the healthy group in this study.