82 - Perceived Retention, Stability, and Comfort of Mouthguards in Various Dentitions

Purpose: To assess and compare subject-perceived retention, stability, and comfort of boil and bite mouthguards versus custom mouthguards in mixed and permanent dentition.

Methods: Eligible patients presenting to the Dental Department at Boston Children’s Hospital for routine dental care were recruited for participation.  Patients were categorized into two groups: Mixed (MX) and Permanent (PM) dentition. Boil and bite (BB) and custom-made (CM) mouthguards were fabricated for each participant. Subjects completed a 15-question survey querying their perception of mouthguard retention, stability, and comfort for each device. All subjects were asked to wear blacked-out sunglasses during each try-in to limit subject bias based on the appearance of mouthguards. To minimize the effect of fatigue associated with repeat testing, a washout period between mouthguard try-ins was used, and order of mouthguard assessment was randomized. Descriptive statistics was performed for binary data. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare ordinal paired data comparing BB and CM mouthguards.

Results: Forty subjects in the mixed (N=20) and permanent (N=20) dentition were recruited. Analyses of survey responses is pending.

Conclusions: TBD

Identify Supporting Agency and Grant Number: