Validity of self-assessed reports of occurrence and duration of occupational tasks

Authors: J Unge; Gert-åke Hansson; K Ohlsson; C Nordander; A Axmon; J Winkel; S Skerfving

Source: Ergonomics, Volume 48, Number 1, January 2005 , pp. 12-24(13)

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Abstract:

To obtain quantitative estimates of the physical workload in epidemiological and intervention studies of musculoskeletal disorders, there is a need to extend task based exposure data to job exposure profiles. For this purpose a work task diary was developed and evaluated. This was validated against direct observations of a day's work for twenty-two female office workers and twenty female hospital cleaners. There was a good agreement regarding the occurrence of the main tasks. However, the less time-consuming tasks were under-reported. Moreover, about two thirds of the changes between tasks were not reported. The difficulties of defining tasks that function as occupational entities seems to be a major reason for the lack of agreement. The underestimation of the duration of breaks/pauses was most pronounced for the cleaners. Still, the diary would be useful for the calculation of job exposure, by time-weighting task exposure data, when the tasks and/or their duration vary between days.

Keywords: Task diary; Cleaners; Office workers; Work exposure; Validity

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140130412331293364

Publication date: 2005-01-01

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