Study of the Reliability of Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) as Method of Assessment of Sculptor’s Posture

EasyChair Preprint 15511

Abstract

Observational methods have been applied to assess work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (WMSDs). The reliability of their results is a challenge. As WMSDs are still a major concern for workers, accurate observation tools are required. This study aimed to investigate the inter-rater reliability (IRR) of the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) in assessing the posture of sculptors performing three tasks (sifting, kneading, and modeling). Thirty-nine subjects – three tasks – three raters fully crossed random effects model was utilized to examine the IRR, 2340 postures were scored individually by each rater. The IRR for each pair of raters was calculated using the weighted Cohen’s Kappa statistic. The highest IRR values among the rater pairs were found in the kneading task when assessing the trunk (1-2: IRR=0.875; 95% CI [0.849-0.900], 1-3: IRR=0.887; 95% CI [0.878-0.896], and 2-3: IRR=0.934; 95% CI [0.923-0.945]). The worst IRRs were obtained for the wrist assessment (1-2: IRR=0.168; 95% CI [0.159-0.177], 1-3: IRR=0.145; 95% CI [0.138-0.152], and 2-3: IRR=0.158; 95% CI [0.148-0.168]). The IRRs differed among tasks. Raters demonstrated higher IRR when scored upper arm, trunk, and leg postures, but fair reliability was observed for neck and wrist postures. Raters showed better IRR values when assessing postures for the sifting and modeling tasks than for the kneading task. This highlights the importance of adequate training and practice before using RULA. In ad-dition, task complexity seems to be an important aspect of IRR in this study. Further studies are needed to analyze how reliability is affected when ana-lyzing different tasks.

Keyphrases: Observation tools, agreement, inter-rater

@booklet{EasyChair:15511,
  author    = {Patricia Eugenia Sortillón-González and Aidé Aracely Maldonado-Macías and Juan Luis Hernández-Arellano and David Saénz-Zamarron and Enrique Javier De la Vega-Bustillos},
  title     = {Study of the Reliability of Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) as Method of Assessment of Sculptor’s Posture},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 15511},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}