Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment results from Quick Exposure Check and Rapid Entire Body Assessment in an anodizing industry of Tehran, Iran

Background: The aim of this paper was the comparison of ergonomic risk assessment results (final score and action levels) for the entire body as determined using Quick Exposure Check (QEC) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in which all 82 workers engaged in various processes with different activities in an anodizing and aluminum profiles producing industry in Tehran, Iran, were studied. The REBA and QEC ergonomic risk assessment techniques and Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) were used in order to assess the correlation between results of the two methods and evaluate the correlation between the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and the results of these two methods. Results: Studied postures, using QEC and REBA assessment methods, acquired the risk levels, respectively, of low risk = 10.9%, moderate risk = 25.5%, and high/very high risk = 63.6% in QEC. They obtained the risk levels of low risk = 56.3%, moderate risk = 40%, and high/very high risk = 12.7%, respectively, 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 > 0.05) was found between final scores of these two methods and prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. Conclusions: These results indicate that the risk assessment outcomes of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the entire body do not agree. Thus, there is no possibility of applying them interchangeably for postural risk assessment, at least not in this industry.