Abstract
The objective of this thesis is to design a tool to gather the necessary information, for use in litigation, from a claimant suffering from an industrial work related manual handling back injury. This is a qualitative study in which an ergonomic approach was taken to the design by identifying and addressing user needs. In this project there were three user groups, lawyers, the end users of the information gathered by the tool, ergonomists who will use the tool and claimants from whom the necessary information must elicited. The legal requirements on an employer were identified through a literature review and the usability of these requirements was considered by lawyers in individual interviews. Arising out of the legal requirements a list of topics for investigation was developed and it’s usability was also considered by the lawyers. An ergonomic literature review based on the investigation topics was conducted to identify the detailed questions that need to be asked and a proforma questionnaire was developed to structure the detailed questions. The usability of this proforma questionnaire was assessed by a focus group of four ergonomists. The focus group also considered bias in the information gathering process. A psychological literature review was carried out to identify the means of reducing bias. Twenty five factual interviews were conducted with claimants using the proforma questionnaire and the guidance arising from the psychological literature review. Further guidance from these interviews was identified in relation to the administration of this proforma questionnaire. Based on their experience in the factual interviews twenty five qualitative research interviews were conducted with the same claimants using the Grounded Theory approach to consider how to help claimants retrieve the facts of the accident/injury occurrence from memory. Guidance is given for the administration of this proforma questionnaire arising out of the focus group, psychological research, factual interviews and memory research. This research proved the need for a systematic approach for gathering information while minimising biases. The guidance combined with the proforma questionnaire developed in this research provides a platform for research in the further development of this tool.