Association between Facial Types and Handedness among Students of Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences Bayero University, Kano

ABSTRACT

Background: Generally, a person's dominant hand is a simple and precise determinant of his preference for hand use in fine manual tasks. The main tools used in forensics are derived from the relationships between anthropometric features with important physical and /or biological traits. Objective: This study was to determine the association between facial types and handedness among students of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences of Bayero University, Kano. Methodology: Cross-sectional study design with a consecutive sampling of 400 (180 males and 220 females) students (aged 18 and above) of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences Bayero University, Kano was carried out. Facial height (FH) and facial width (FW) were measured using established landmarks and the facial index (FI) was calculated from them. The dominant handedness of each participant was determined using the writing component of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. This procedure involved asking the participants to mention which of their hands was dominant. The participant was then asked to write a sentence regarding the activitieshe/she was carrying out at the point of recruitment to ascertain the claim made by the participants. The sentence was written separately using each hand. All the data obtained were analyzed using statistical software (SPSS version 20.0). Results: The study population was relatively young (21.76 ± 2.77 years). Right-handedness was the commonest hand dominance observed in both males (90.7%) and females (91.7%). The commonest types of face were the hypereuriproscopic 2 (0.5%), Euriproscopic 41 (10.3%), Mesoproscopic 78 (19.5%), Leptoproscopic 127 (31.8%) and Hyperleptoproscopic 152 (37%) facial types. The majority of the participants were right-handed and this was regardless of gender. The prediction of handedness based on facial types (ꭕ2 = 1.39, Df =3, P = 0.85) or facial index (P = 0.92, OR=0.99, CI = 0.82 ­ 1.19) was not statistically significant. Conclusion: The facial types identified among the study population were not associated with their handedness and thus it was not a good predictor of handedness