Estimation of stature from hand length and hand breadth on medical students at Addis Ababa university and St.Paul hospital millennium medical college, Addis Ababa,Ethiopia
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Date
2018-02
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Introduction: Stature of an individual is an inherent character and considered as one of
important parameter of personal identification and to assess nutritional status; it is the sum total
of different axial and appendicular bones. Each components of bone has its own relation to
stature; and stature can be estimated both anatomically and mathematically. In most cases getting
complete bone and measuring stature directly is difficult due to these challenge; estimation of
stature from different parts of body is focus of many researchers.
Objective: To assess correlation between hand length, hand breadth and stature of medical
students and create regression equation to estimate stature.
Methods and Materials: Cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 210 first year
medical students at Addis Ababa University and St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College
from January to August 2017. Participants were selected by simple random sampling method.
Stature, hand length, hand breadth and weight of students were measured and a pretested
questionnaire prepared in Amharic and English was used to gather sociodemographic data. Data
was processed by using SPSS software version 23 for calculation of Mean, SD, correlation
coefficient, regression coefficient and the value of constant to estimate stature. P-value less than
0.05 was taken as statistically significant.
Results: About 51.4 % of participants were male and the mean age of participants was 19.45±
0.993 SD. The mean value of stature was172.715±5.218SD cm and 160.166±6.078 SD on male
and female participants respectively. Hand length and hand breadth shows statistically significant
correlation (r 0.229 - 0.720, p<0.05) with stature. All Morphometric measurements show
statistically significant (p<0.05) sexual dimorphism. Only hand breadth exhibit statistically
significant bilateral asymmetry. Regression equation derived from hand length shows larger R²
value than hand breadth in both participants. The SEE of estimate was higher in hand breadth
than hand length in both sexes. The result indicated that there was no statistically significant
mean difference (p>0.05) between estimated and actual stature for both sexes.
Conclusion: Hand length and hand breadth have statistically significant relation with stature;
thereby stature could be predicted by both hand breadth and hand length when difficult
conditions occurred.
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Keywords
Stature, Hand Length, Hand Breadth, Estimation