Hand Grips as Complementary Instrument in the Determination of Handedness in Males

Aim: To evaluate other complementary uni-manual activities as instrument in the determination of handedness.

Place and Duration of Study: The study area was carried out between April and July, 2014 among male medical undergraduate students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Remo campus, Ikenne, Ogun state, in the South Western region of Nigeria.

Methodology: A Total of 320 male medical undergraduate students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ikenne Campus were recruited for this work. The data for this study was collected using the handedness questionnaires that were administered to the students. The questionnaires were designed to interview the students and constructed in such a way that questions are relevant to the research objectives. It contained information pertaining to the hand used for performing certain activities.

Results: Our results showed that 81% of the male students preferred to write with the right, 17% with the left (P<0.001) while 2% have no clear preference. We also found out that in precision, hook and power grip; 75%, 74.07% and 72% preferred the right hand respectively while 16%, 7.63% and 20% preferred the left hand respectively.

Conclusion: We therefore concluded that, handedness can also be defined by other uni-manual activities such as precision, hook and power grips other than a single criterion; the writing hand.