Exposure Assessment of Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk Factors in Hospital Work: Inter-Rater Reliability of Path Observations

We examined the inter-rater reliability (IRR) of expert observations of ergonomic risk factors by four analysts. Ten jobs were observed at a hospital using a revision of the PATH method (Buchholz 1996). Two of four raters simultaneously observed each worker onsite. A total of 18 categorical exposure items were available for analysis. For most of the items, kappa coefficients were 0.4 or higher, showing that the IRR of the revised method was good. As predicted, agreement among observers was higher for the jobs with less rapid hand activity and for the analysts with more ergonomics and job analysis experience. The results show that the revised method can be reliably applicable to hospital work, and suggest that it can reasonably assess ergonomic exposure in any type of non-routine job across industries including healthcare industry.