Reliability of self-administered Work Ability Index questionnaire among Korean workers

Although the Work Ability Index (WAI) has been used in many countries, its reliability is yet to be validated in Korea. In our study, test-retest results of WAI total score, WAI category and seven subscales were compared. The correlation coefficients of WAI total score and subscales 1 and 2 between test and retest were 0.70, 0.80 and 0.63, respectively. The κ values on WAI category, subscales 4, 5, 6 and 7 were 0.52, 0.32, 0.31, 0.48 and 0.85, respectively. The results of our reliability test show that WAI scores of female, younger and private company workers were found to be higher than those of male, older and public company workers, respectively. We conclude that overall test-retest reliability of WAI in Korea is acceptable. Another notable observation from our study is that work ability dimension (subscales 1, 2 and 7) had a higher reliability, whereas health dimension (subscales 3-6) had a lower reliability.