RELIABILITY OF QUESTIONNAIRE INFORMATION MEASURING MUSCULOSKELETAL SYMPTOMS AND WORK HISTORIES

This study was designed to assess the test-retest reliability of a mus culoskeletal symptom and work history (MSWH) questionnaire administere d to 522 carpenters. A 10% subgroup of carpenters completing the origi nal interview was selected for the retest interview. The areas address ed included recall of work-related musculoskeletal symptoms, prior med ical conditions, prior injuries, recall of work histories, and psychos ocial items. The results show that for these sections of the MSWH ques tionnaire the observed agreements ranged from 75.5 to 97.0%, and the c alculated kappa estimates ranged from 0.46 to 0.77. Injury to body reg ions,job specialty, and prior medical history had the highest kappa va lues of K =.70 or greater. Reliability of reporting frequency of job d uties such as flooring and finishing was excellent, with kappa = 0.73 (95% confidence interval = 0.66, 0.80). Based on these results, the ov erall reliability of the MSWH questionnaire is very good.