Table 4 Findings of the analysis of variance of the Person-Item Threshold Distributions for each person variable

Gender

0.0004*

Male

-0.31

0.81

Men reported less hand disability then women

Female

-0.065

0.86

Age

0.6983

Under 40

-0.063

0.88

No differences

40 – 49

0.014

1.01

50 – 59

-0.10

0.86

60 – 69

-0.17

0.85

70 – 79

-0.10

0.80

80 – 89

-0.036

0.75

Dominant hand treated

0.2748

No

-0.080

0.85

No differences

Yes

-0.12

0.86

Ambidextrous, one hand treated

-0.10

0.95

Ambidextrous, both hands treated

-0.10

0.59

Both hands treated, not ambidextrous

-0.34

0.84

Treatment choice

 < 0.0001*

Non-surgical

-0.30

0.82

Non-surgical patients reported less hand disability then surgical patients

Surgical

0.19

0.83

Pain Catastrophizing Scale (0–52) [12]

 < 0.0001*

Less than 15

-0.34

0.79

Patients with lower pain catastrophizing scores reported less hand disability then patients with higher pain catastrophizing scores

15 – 23

0.077

0.73

24 – 38

0.47

0.81

39 – 52

1.44

1.00

Illness perception overall score (IPS) (0–80) [13]

 < 0.0001*

0 – 10

-1.42

0.98

Patients with lower IPS reported less hand disability then patients with higher IPS

11 – 20

-0.87

0.68

21 – 30

-0.70

0.76

31 – 40

-0.25

0.78

41 – 50

0.043

0.71

51 – 60

0.42

0.90

61 – 70

0.89

0.86

71 – 80

0.0

0.0

Type of work

0.3151

Unemployed

-0.061

0.83

No differences

Light physical labor

-0.19

0.88

Moderate physical labor

-0.15

0.87

Heavy physical labor

-0.11

0.87