I am working on small scale industries. Specifically the unorganised sector to find out the discomfort levels and risk factors for MSDs. I may also use RULA and REBA.
Dear Syed,
You should consider that these methods have a limited ability to identify the risk factors for MSDs.
When you apply RULA or REBA, you will only be describing a picture in a quantitive way. That's the first question: which picture? The worst or the most frequent posture?
REBA method was proposed to assess the effectiveness of intervention in nursing jobs.
Addtionally, in both cases, the temporal component of the exposure and work organizational factors are omitted. And in my opinion, they are critical factors.
Best regards
Hi Syed,
From what I have studied the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) has been used mainly in the medical field, to assess physical feelings (i.e. pain). I think that it could be applied to discomfort, but bear in mind that discomfort is a multidimensional factor, depending on several variables (physical? psychological? social?) so pay attention to not underestimate the variables.
Regards.
Dear Syed
The VAS can be used. Tips are given below,
For the assessment of overall discomfort rating a ten point psychophysical rating scale ( 0 = no discomfort, 10 extreme discomfort) may be used, which is an adaptation of Corlett and Bishop (1976) technique. Prior to the assessment of postural discomfort the subject should be anchored to the psychophysical rating scale. This anchoring may be carried on tread mill at forward speeds which are likely to be obtained during the test under actual field conditions. A scale of 70 cm length should be fabricated having 0 to 10 digits marked on it equidistantly. A movable pointer should be provided to indicate the rating. Trial of 2 h duration should be conducted and at the end of 2 h trial period the subject should be asked to indicate his overall discomfort rating on the scale.
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