Evidence map›Paper›PMID 16081755›Full record

Trial reportInjury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention2005

Should football players wear custom fitted mouthguards? Results from a group randomised controlled trial.

C Finch, R Braham, A McIntosh, P McCrory, R Wolfe

Open access · bronzeAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
22citing papers in PubMed, 6 pooled it
2.4field-weighted citation impact, top 11% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

22 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 95 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Pooled it
  5. Guideline
  6. Pooled it
  7. The Preventing Australian Football Injuries with Exercise (PAFIX) Study: a group randomised controlled trial.Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2009
    Trial
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Interventions to Prevent Unintentional Injuries Among Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2016
    Review
  14. Injuries can be prevented in contact flag football!Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA · 2016
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. The prevention of injuries in contact flag football.Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA · 2014
    Article
  19. Review
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

C FinchNew South Wales Injury Risk Management Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. c.finch@unsw.edu.au
R Braham
A McIntosh
P McCrory
R Wolfe
Monash University · AUUNSW Sydney · AUUniversity of Melbourne · AU

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveHead/orofacial (H/O) injuries are common in Australian rules football. Mouthguards are widely promoted to prevent these injuries, in spite of the lack of formal evidence for their effectiveness.

designThe Australian football injury prevention project was a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of mouthguards for preventing H/O injuries in these players. SETTING AND SUBJECTS: Twenty three teams (301 players) were recruited from the largest community football league in Australia.

interventionTeams were randomly allocated to either the MG: custom made mouthguard or C: control (usual mouthguard behaviours) study arm.

main outcome measuresAll injuries, participation in training and games, and mouthguard use were monitored over the 2001 playing season. Injury rates were calculated as the number of injuries per 1000 person hours of playing time. Adjusted incidence rate ratios were obtained from Poisson regression models.

resultsPlayers in both study arms wore mouthguards, though it is unlikely that many controls wore custom made ones. Wearing rates were higher during games than training. The overall rate of H/O injury was 2.7 injuries per 1000 exposure hours. The rate of H/O injury was higher during games than training. The adjusted H/O injury incidence rate ratio was 0.56 (95% CI 0.32 to 0.97) for MG versus C during games and training, combined.

conclusionsThere was a significant protective effect of custom made mouthguards, relative to usual mouthguard use, during games. However, the control players still wore mouthguards throughout the majority of games and this could have diluted the effect.

Indexed as

Mouth ProtectorsAdolescentAdultCraniocerebral TraumaEquipment DesignFacial InjuriesFootballHumansIncidenceMaleMouth

Identifiers

PMID16081755
PMCPMC1730251
OpenAlexW2132523102

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.