The Quick Exposure Check (QEC) - Inter-rater reliability in total score and individual items.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Ergonomics
• Musculoskeletal Disorders

Background:

• Workplace risk factors like heavy lifting and repetitive tasks contribute to musculoskeletal disorders.
• The Quick Exposure Check (QEC) tool was developed to evaluate exposure to these risks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the inter-rater reliability of the Swedish version of the QEC.
• To assess the reliability of both summary scores and individual items of the QEC.

Main Methods:

• Two simultaneous assessments of 51 work tasks were conducted by 14 different workers.
• The study compared assessments of light to moderately heavy work tasks.
• Inter-rater reliability was evaluated using percentage agreement and Weighted Kappa.

Main Results:

• The Swedish QEC showed moderate to very good inter-rater reliability.
• Agreement levels ranged from 63-100% for individual items and 71-88% for total scores.
• No statistically significant random disagreement was found.

Conclusions:

• The Swedish translation of the QEC is a reliable tool for assessing occupational musculoskeletal risk factors.
• The tool demonstrates fair to slight systematic disagreement, with no significant random disagreement.
• The QEC is suitable for evaluating risks affecting the back, shoulder/arm, wrist/hand, and neck.