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. 2019 Feb;69(1):25-34.
doi: 10.1111/idj.12406. Epub 2018 May 29.

Is there enough evidence that mouthguards do not affect athletic performance? A systematic literature review

Gustavo Barbosa Ferreira  1 , Ludmila Silva Guimarães  1 , Claudio Pinheiro Fernandes  2 , Reinaldo Brito Dias  3 , Neide Pena Coto  3 , Lívia Azeredo A Antunes  2 , Leonardo Santos Antunes  2
Affiliations

Is there enough evidence that mouthguards do not affect athletic performance? A systematic literature review

Gustavo Barbosa Ferreira et al. Int Dent J. 2019 Feb.

Abstract

Background: Although there is evidence that mouthguards prevent orofacial trauma occurrence during sport practice, the influence of this device on athletic performance has not been systematically quantified.

Objectives: We aim to systematically review the literature to determine the effect of mouthguards on athletic performance and if the type of mouthguard influences this overcome.

Materials and methods: A comprehensive search was performed in the Systematic Electronic Databases: Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library from their inception to February 2017. The publications were grouped based on their outcome: (i) the use of mouthguards; or (ii) the type of mouthguards. We conducted descriptive analyses and quality assessments of the included studies.

Results: The search identified 489 citations. After screening the studies, we identified 15 trials comprising a population of 312 athletes. According to the risk of bias evaluation, nine studies were considered 'high' risk of bias, and six 'low' risk of bias. Overall, custom-made mouthguards did not interfere or improve athletes' performance when compared with the control group (without mouthguard). Custom-made mouthguards showed the smallest range of changes in players' performance compared with other types of mouthguards.

Conclusions: This systematic review provides evidence for sports professionals to advocate the use of custom-made mouthguards to prevent injury, and these devices do not impair performance. The scientific evidence should be interpreted carefully because there is a great variability in outcome measures and lack of important methodological details.

Keywords: Mouthguard; mouth protectors; performance; prevention; systematic review.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: Prisma 2009 flow diagram (from: Moher et al. For more information, visit www.prisma-statement.org).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Quality assessment of the selected studies (The Cochrane Collaboration tool for assessing risk of bias).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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