Job coding (PCS 2003): feedback from a study in Occupational Health Service

Aim: to examine the quality of job manual coding carried out by occupational health teams with access to a software application that provides assistance in coding jobs and business sectors (CAPS).
Methods: data from a study conducted in an Occupational Health Service was used. In a first level of coding, 1495 jobs were coded by occupational health teams with the French occupational classification entitled "PSC- Professions and socio-professional categories” (INSEE, 2003 version). Also, a second level of coding has been performed by an experienced coder and a comparison between the first level and the second level has been conducted. Agreement between the two coding systems was studied using the kappa coefficient (k) and the comparison of frequency based on chi2 tests.
Results: there was a problem of missing data or incorrect codes, amounting to 14,6% for social groups (1 digit) and at 25.7% for the job code (4 digits). While agreement between the first two levels of PSC 2003 seems satisfactory (k=0.73 and k=0.75), imbalances in reassignment flows were effectively noted. The level of divergent codes was 48.2% when coding jobs. Variation in the frequency of socio-professional variables could reach up to 8.6% after correcting for missing data and divergent codes.
Conclusions: compared with other studies, the use of the CAPS tool appeared to provide effective coding assistance. However, our results indicate that job coding based on PSC 2003 should be conducted using ancillary data by personnel trained in its usage