Improving fit to work assessments for rail safety workers by exploring work limitations

PURPOSE: We aim to provide evidence for improving fit to work assessments for rail safety workers and raised the question whether adding an assessment of work limitations is useful. Therefore, we assessed differences in the proportions of perceived work limitations and reported health complaints and whether older age or having health complaints are risk factors for having work limitations. METHODS: Job requirements for rail safety workers are ‘vigilance and clear judgment’, ‘good communication abilities’, ‘sufficient eye sight’ and ‘task-required physical abilities’. We invited 1000 workers to fill in a questionnaire about perceived work limitations and health problems related to their job requirements. Proportions of the two were compared by using the McNemar test. Associations were analyzed by using univariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Among 484 rail safety workers, we found statistically significant differences between the proportions of reported health complaints (2–26 %) and work limitations (10–32 %). No significant associations were found between older age and work limitations, except for workers in the age group 40–50 years regarding physical abilities. This was not found for the age group over 50 years. For each age category, workers reporting health complaints related to ‘vigilance and clear judgment’ and ‘sufficient physical abilities’ had a statistically significant increased risk for reporting work limitations as well (ORs 2.4–17.9). CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that fit to work assessments should include both health complaints and work limitations. Our results do not substantiate the assumption that workers over 40 years of age are at increased risk for work limitations in general.