Abstract
BackgroundErgonomics researchers and practitioners use many techniques to assess risk. The Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) is a common tool used to facilitate the measurement and evaluation of the risks associated with working postures as a part of ergonomic workload. However, little work has been reported regarding the reliability of REBA reporting. ObjectiveThis study assesses the reliability of this commonly used tool for research and practice. MethodsThe study was conducted as part of the larger Safe Workload Ergonomic Exposure Project (SWEEP), which is a University of Minnesota research initiative for custodians. For this effort, a secondary data analysis was conducted on data collected during a study of custodians’ exposures to risks of musculoskeletal disorders. Eight observers used the REBA tool to sequentially evaluate tasks performed two times in succession by the same individual. ResultsThis study reports high intra-rater reliability (ICC = 0.925) for REBA raw scores and moderate inter-rater reliability (IRR) (Fleiss kappa = 0.54) for a categorical scoring of REBA. ConclusionA moderate amount of IRR was found, and a standardized training and calibration protocol is proposed as a potential means to improve intra- and inter-rater reliability.
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