ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oral Health
Sec. Preventive Dentistry
This article is part of the Research TopicInterdisciplinary and Cross-Sectoral Approaches to Oral Health PromotionView all articles
Oral health status, on-ice and off-ice test performance, and match performance in elite male ice hockey players: a pilot study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery,University Medicine Halle, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
- 2Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, University Medicine Halle, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
- 3Department for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Halle, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
- 4Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Informatics, University Medicine Halle, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
- 5University Outpatient Clinic for Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, University Medicine Halle, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
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Introduction: Oral health status (OH) seems to be relevant for the overall health status and common physical performance (PP). Aim: The aim was to explore the associations between OH, days of absence (due to illness and injury), parameters of on-ice and off-ice performance diagnostic, and the match performance (MP) over three seasons. Methods: Twenty male players (age: 27.7 ± 3.6 years; range: 20–34 years; 2 goalies, 7 defenders, and 11 forwards) from a third league professional ice hockey team were investigated regarding several dental parameters (DMFT, PSI, API, and PBI) by a calibrated examiner. The PP diagnostic contains the ice hockey-specific complex test (IHCT), strength-endurance tests (bench press, plank), and endurance tests on bike (PWC 170, 30 min all-out test) as well as the measurement of postural stability and regulation using posturography. Furthermore, the number of sick days and the MP were collected and assessed over three seasons. Results: We could not find any relevant (r > 0.5) correlations between days of absence and the above-mentioned independent variables. A relevant association was found between PSI and penalty times (r = 0.46; 95% CI = (-0.04; 0.78)). The match performance score was associated with the IHCT total time (r = −0.55; 95% CI = (−0.82; −0.07)), especially with transition without puck (r = −0.62; 95% CI = (−0.85; −0.18)). Only one player (5%) reported that oral health had ever had a negative impact on his physical performance. This player had 124 days of absence compared with an average of 58 days for all other players. Discussion: In the framework of this study, dental health and injury prevention did not correlate with each other. Overall, the dental health of the German ice hockey sample examined could be rated above comparable averages. The test and match data once again prove the IHCT to be a suitable assessment tool.
Keywords: Oral Health Status, DMFT, Periodontal health, Ice hockey, physical performance on-iceand off-ice, Posture, Endurance, strength
Received: 14 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schwesig, Kurz, Brill, Schulze, Wienke and Gernhardt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Christian Ralf Gernhardt
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