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

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 body assessment (LUBA) methods in predicting the risk of upper limb musculoskeletal disorders in the workers of household manufacturing industry. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 346 employees in the operational sector of a household manufacturing industry, in six occupational groups. The Nordic General Questionnaire was used to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. Furthermore, LUBA, RULA, and NERPA methods were employed to predict the risk of upper limb musculoskeletal disorders. Finally, the values measured by the Nordic General Questionnaire and those predicted by the three mentioned methods were analyzed by the Spearman correlation coefficient and Kappa coefficient in SPSS software (version 25) at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The mean age and work experience of the participants were 39.52±4.81 and 9.17±4.61 years, respectively. The correlation coefficients between the measured and predicted levels of musculoskeletal disorders by RULA, NERPA, and LUBA methods were obtained as 0.701, 0.691, and 0.629, respectively (P