The British Journal of Psychiatry 140: 166-173 (1982)
© 1982 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Differences between two studies of hand preference in psychiatric patients
PJ Taylor, R Dalton, JJ Fleminger and WA Lishman
Significant differences in handedness patterns between groups of
psychiatric patients and normal controls were identified in two recent
British studies, with substantial disagreement in some important findings.
Most of the discrepancies were attributable to the different application of
a simple classification of handedness data, and the remainder to
differences in sample size. Diagnosis, sex and age were then found to have
a similar effect on handedness in both studies. Neurotic patients were
similar to controls regardless of classification, whereas mixed handedness
in personality disorder depended on it. There was no overall excess of
left-handedness among schizophrenics, but trends towards excess
sinistrality in men and fully dextrality in women approached significance.