RESUMO
Introduction: The identification of deceased is essential during legal investigations, such as crimes resulting infatality or discovery of unclaimed human body. Stature of an individual plays vital role in determining theidentity of unknown person. Over the past decades, several anthropometric measurements of body segments hadbeen used to compute the stature of an individual with variable degree of accuracy.Aim: To formulate the regression equations to estimate the stature from hand length.Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in 197 students consisting of 100females and 97 males, in College of Medical Science, Bharatpur, Nepal. Height and length of both hands weremeasured in each student with Stadiometer and spreading caliper respectively. The data was analysed usingSPSS version 16.0.Results: The mean values of height and length of both hands were statistically higher in males than in females(p<0.05). A significant positive correlation was observed between the height and length of right and left hands inboth males and females, (p<0.05). The coefficients of determination were 0.39 in males for both hands and thatin females were 0.51 for right hand and 0.49 for left hand. The calculated height (derived using regressionequations) revealed no significant difference from the observed height in both male and female students (p>0.05).Conclusion: This study provides regression equations to estimate stature from the hand length measurements, ashand length relates well with stature.