Physical Employment Standards for UK Royal Navy Personnel: A Survey of Tasks That Require Muscle Strength and Endurance

Author:

Brown Piete E H1,Fallowfield Joanne L11

Affiliation:

1. Institute of Naval Medicine, Applied Physiology Department, Crescent Road, Alverstoke, Gosport, Hampshire, UK

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Physical Employment Standards (PES) safeguard the requirement to create a suitable job-person fit in military occupations, and in doing so mitigate some operational and musculoskeletal injury risk. The primary purpose of this research was to identify critical – physically demanding tasks performed by UK Royal Navy (RN) seafarers to inform the development of a muscle strength and endurance-based PES. A secondary purpose was to explore possible sex and age-based differences in subjective ratings of occupational task physical demand. Materials and Methods In accordance with the Ministry of Defence Research Ethics Committee, 515 Naval personnel (443 males, 72 females; aged 30.2 ± 7.3 years) completed an anonymous survey that rated the physical demand (from no to very high), criticality (from not to critically important), and frequency (from seldom to several times per day) of 25 common sea-going tasks on a one to five scale. An a priori criteria was applied to down-select a shortlist of the most critical and physically demanding tasks (i.e., median task criticality and task physical demand scores of ≥4, and ≥3, respectively). A Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test explored sex and age-based differences in subjective physical demand ratings. Results Ten (out of 25) tasks met the critical – physical demand criteria, which included the four task categories of fire fighting, damage control, casualty handling, and basic movement/transit tasks. Casualty handling emerged as the single most physically demanding task category performed by seafarers, which was rated to have “high” physical demand (4 on the 1 to 5 scale). Sex and age-based differences in subjective ratings of task physical demand were equivocal, with females rating 3 (out of the 25 tasks), and 40–51 year olds rating 4 (out of 25 tasks) to have a higher physical demand than males and 19–29 year olds, respectively. Conclusion Ten criterion tasks were identified and should undergo a further job analysis to inform the development of strength-based PES for the RN.

Funder

Ministry of Defence

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,General Medicine

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3