Avaliação da capacidade funcional em trabalhadores da indústria metalúrgica do Sul do País.

Abstract

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of the prevalence of decreased work ability in metallurgy workers and to assess the test-retest reliability of the Work Ability Index (WAI).

Methods: Two studies were carried out: a prevalence study with a convenience sample of 441 metallurgy workers of four industries from Southern Brazil; and a 4-week-interval test-retest reliability study with 153 workers. Data analyses included chi-squared tests, prevalence ratios and their confidence intervals for the prevalence study; and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), paired t-test and weighted Kappa coefficient for the test-retest study.

Results: The prevalence of decreased work ability was 11,2% (CI95% 8.2-14.2). Decreased work ability was not associated with any of the dependent variables. The test-retest reliability for the WAI as a continuous variable showed na ICC of 0,84 (CI95% 0,78-0,88, p<0,001) and the paired t-test did not show significant difference between the 1st and the 2nd application. The weight