Validity of the dictionary of occupational titles for assessing upper extremity work demands

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) is used in vocational rehabilitation to guide decisions about the ability of a person with activity limitations to perform activities at work. The DOT has categorized physical work demands in five categories. The validity of this categorization is unknown. Aim of this study was to investigate whether the DOT could be used validly to guide decisions for patients with injuries to the upper extremities. Four hypotheses were tested.

A database including 701 healthy workers was used. All subjects filled out the Dutch Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, from which an Upper Extremity Work Demands score (UEWD) was derived. First, relation between the DOT-categories and UEWD-score was analysed using Spearman correlations. Second, variance of the UEWD-score in occupational groups was tested by visually inspecting boxplots and assessing kurtosis of the distribution. Third, it was investigated whether occupations classified in one DOT-category, could significantly differ on UEWD-scores. Fourth, it was investigated whether occupations in different DOT-categories could have similar UEWD-scores using Mann Whitney U-tests (MWU).

Relation between the DOT-categories and the UEWD-score was weak (r(sp) = 0.40; p<.01). Overlap between categories was found. Kurtosis exceeded ±1.0 in 3 occupational groups, indicating large variance. UEWD-scores were significantly different within one DOT-category (MWU = 1.500; p<.001). UEWD scores between DOT-categories were not significantly different (MWU = 203.000; p = .49).

All four hypotheses could not be rejected. The DOT appears to be invalid for assessing upper extremity work demands.