A Comparative Study on NERPA, RULA, and LUBA Methods in Predicting the Risk of Upper Limb Musculoskeletal Disorders in Household Manufacturing Industry

Muhandisī-i bihdāsht-i ḥirfah/ī

卷:7

Sajjad Samiei¹  Reza Pourbabaki¹  Mohsen Sadeghi Yarandi¹  Salman Torabi Goodarzi¹ 

[1] MSc, Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran;

关键词: musculoskeletal disorders;    rula;    nerpa;    luba;   

DOI  :  10.29252/jech.7.1.11

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Background and Objective: Work-related upper limb disorders (WRULDs)are among the main causes of disability in industrial workers. Regarding this,the present study aimed to compare novel ergonomic postural assessment(NERPA), rapid upper limb assessment (RULA), and loading upper bodyassessment (LUBA) methods in predicting the risk of upper limbmusculoskeletal disorders in the workers of household manufacturingindustry.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 346employees in the operational sector of a household manufacturing industry,in six occupational groups. The Nordic General Questionnaire was used todetermine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. Furthermore, LUBA,RULA, and NERPA methods were employed to predict the risk of upperlimb musculoskeletal disorders. Finally, the values measured by the NordicGeneral Questionnaire and those predicted by the three mentioned methodswere analyzed by the Spearman correlation coefficient and Kappa coefficientin SPSS software (version 25) at a significance level of 0.05.Results: The mean age and work experience of the participants were39.52±4.81 and 9.17±4.61 years, respectively. The correlation coefficientsbetween the measured and predicted levels of musculoskeletal disorders byRULA, NERPA, and LUBA methods were obtained as 0.701, 0.691, and0.629, respectively (P<0.05). Moreover, the correlation coefficients of thepredicted risk levels in RULA with the obtained risk levels in NERPA andLUBA methods were 0.713 and 0.619, respectively (P<0.05).Conclusion: The results of the present study revealed the RULA method asthe best technique for predicting the risk of the prevalence of upper limbmusculoskeletal disorders among the different examined tasks. Finally,it was determined that none of the studied methods had adequatecomprehensiveness to assess all of the four risk levels. Therefore, it issuggested that newer methods be developed based on the correction andbetter division of angles.

【 授权许可】

Unknown