Comparison of Ergonomic Risk Assessment Results from Rapid Entire Body Assessment and Quick Exposure Check

Aims: The aim of this paper was compare the ergonomic risk assessment results (final score and action levels) for the entire body as determined by Quick Exposure Check (QEC) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). Materials and Methods: The REBA and QEC ergonomic risk assessment techniques and Nordic questionnaire were used in order to assessment of correlation between two methods results and evaluating the correlation between the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders with the results of these two methods. As all 82 workers engaged in various process with different activities were studied. Results: Studied postures by QEC and REBA assessment methods have acquired risk levels respectively ?(low risk=10.9%, moderate risk=25.5% and high/very high risk =63.6%) in QEC and (low risk=56.3%, moderate risk=40% and high/very high risk=12.7%)in REBA. The kappa (0. 12) and gamma scores (0.51) showed no agreement between the outputs of the two tools. No significant correlation (P-value > 0.05) was found between final scores of these two methods and prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. Conclusion: These results indicate that the risk assessment outcomes of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree, so that there is not possibility of apply interchangeably both methods for postural risk assessment, at least in this industry.