Development of a post-offer screening tool for patient support services.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of our project was to develop a post-offer screening tool that demonstrates interrater reliability, predictive validity, and face validity and that accurately represents the physical demands of the patient support services (lifting team) job at our health care facility.


METHODS
The screening tool, which consists of 11 static and dynamic tasks, was developed, using the 13 incumbent staff members of the patient support services department, to determine whether the criteria established for each task matched the physical abilities of at least 80% of the total group tested. Test-retest design was used for this study. Intraclass correlation coefficients and the Kappa statistic were used to calculate interrater reliability. Face validity was determined through the Job Similarity Questionnaire completed by all subjects.


RESULTS
Subjects did not meet criteria established for the static knee pull and the knuckle-to-elbow lift tasks, resulting in modification of these two criteria. Interrater reliability ranged from .22 for the maximum static pull wall task to .94 for the left-hand grip strength task. Face validity ranged from 53.9% to 92.4%.


CONCLUSIONS
Although face validity of the Job Similarity Questionnaire represented a wide range, we believe that the results were homogeneous enough to continue with the screening tool unchanged, except for lowering the expected outcome on two tasks. Interrater reliability was established for 75% of the tasks. The lack of variation of data for the other 25% prevented statistical analysis of those tasks but confirmed that all members met the physical criteria.
Laflin
K
K
Fletcher Allen Health Care, Colchester, Vermont 05446, USA.
Aja
D
D
Banasiak
N
N
D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000328:Adult; D006804:Ergonomics; D006801:Humans; D007587:Job Description; D017770:Lifting; D008297:Male; D009314:National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U.S.; D015588:Observer Variation; D009788:Occupational Therapy; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010360:Patient Transfer; D010809:Physical Fitness; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control*