Assessing the relationship between hand dimensions and manual dexterity performance for Turkish dental students

The objectives of this study included: (i) a determination of whether there is a difference in manual dexterity as a function of gender and dentistry curriculum and (ii) an assessment of hand anthropometric characteristics on manual dexterity test performance. In total, 155 dental students (86 males and 69 females) in their first, second, third, fourth, and fifth years of a five-year undergraduate program took part in the study that involved a simple manual dexterity test. We used a paired sample t-test to compare differences between males and females and among students of different years. Pearson's correlation coefficients were computed as a measure of association between parameters. The results demonstrate that anthropometric data of both hands have small but significant effects on test performance, and that small hands are associated with better test performance.