A crucial occupational health physiotherapist's role is advising on a person's physical fitness for work. To do this, the physiotherapist working in occupational health uses tools to measure a person's physical and functional capacity and perform a series of assessments. Many physiotherapists use physical-functional measurements for this purpose. The physical-functional pre-employment evaluations aim to identify musculoskeletal injuries present in the worker or functional limitations of movements that prevent him from carrying out occupational activities, such as handling loads.

Identify the profile of physiotherapists who perform physical-functional and complementary assessments, who work with occupational health.

This is a cross-sectional study through interviews (survey) with physiotherapists who work with physical-functional and complementary assessments in occupational health. Physiotherapists who carry out physical-functional evaluations in workers with the objective of assessment, periodic, or dismissal, were included. the recruitment and access to the questionnaire were through a “Contact Mode” survey and the link was sent through social networks and a banner in the development and pre-test questionnaire was prepared with the title and purpose of the research and types of questions, the administration of the survey carried out via the web, it was a voluntary survey, without incentives with collection from June to December 2022 with a questionnaire with 55 items and 12 pages.

Of the 1210 guests with a professional profile in the occupational health field, 106 physiotherapists responded that they evaluated workers according to the established inclusion criteria. The occupational profile characteristics of the participants prevailed the female gender being 70.8%, most qualified with specialization 69.8% and work in the area from 2 to 4 years 24.5%. 56.6% consider the use of the ICF in their evaluations, 45.3% use questionnaires to assess health and capacity, 35.8% usually request additional tests, 82.1% include evaluation of participation in work, 40.6% evaluate workers over 60 years old, 48.1% assess workers with physical or mental disabilities. They use sociodemographic information and anthropometric profiles in their evaluation forms, predominate use of pain assessment in workers on the Visual Analog Scale 76.4%. In the evaluation techniques and instruments used to measure a range of motion, a simple goniometer prevails in 58.5%. In the functional physical assessments, 72.6% use special functional tests, with the most evaluated elements being pain 98.1%, active range of motion 98.1%, edema 93.4%, tonus 88.7%, tropism 84.9%, scars 83.0%, gait and sensitivity 81.1%. The monitoring of workers is ordered weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually. These assessments include admission, periodic change of function, removal or return to work, diagnosis of disability, establishing a causal link, and dismissals.

We identify that physiotherapists use other resources besides a musculoskeletal-based assessment to assess workers.

This study allows us to understand better how physiotherapists conduct their assessments and know some of the most used techniques and methods.