QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH SERVICES INSTRUMENTS

Interest in the quality of instruments for occupational health service s is growing as a result of European legislation on preventive service s stressing, for example, risk identification and assessment. The qual ity of the services can be enhanced when the quality of the applied in struments can be judged and improved. To judge quality aspects of inst ruments, a basic draft scheme and criteria are presented. A first cate gory of criteria covers measurement objective and study design and com prises for example sample strategy and data aggregation level. Technic al quality aspects are validity, reliability, standardization and prec ision. Acceptability of an instrument by employees, employers and prof essionals belongs to the process quality. At last, strategic quality o r presumed utility has to be assessed. As an illustration four instrum ents have been judged: periodic occupational health surveys, pre-emplo yment medicals, the company audit on work and health, and specific wor king conditions assessment instruments. Finally the presented basic sc heme and criteria are brought into discussion.