COMPARISON OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG DIFFERENT HANDED MEDICAL STUDENTS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

OBJECTIVE: To compare academic performances among different handed second professional medical students in Khyber Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan. METHODS: This is a cross sectional study conducted from May to September 2017. A total of 194 medical students from second professional MBBS of any gender were recruited in this study after taking their informed consent. A questionnaire was distributed among the students; their handedness and first professional marks were noted. SPSS v.20.0 was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were applied for both categorical and numerical variables while for comparison independent sample t-test was applied. RESULTS: Out of 194 students enrolled, 184 (94.8%) were right-handed & 10 (5.2%) were left-handed. There were 108 (55.7%) male & 86 (44.3%) female students. In right-handed students, 103 (56%) were males and 81 (44%) were females while in left-handed students, five (50%) were males and five (50%) were females. Mean marks in first professional examinations by right- handed and left-handed students were 429.57 +/- 39.054 and 439.80 +/- 34.113 respectively (p-value=0.481). Mean first professional marks of male and female students were 422.48 +/- 37.53 and 439.66 +/- 38.46 respectively (p-value=0.002). CONCLUSION: Our study findings infer that handedness does not affect the academic scores in medical students.