Comparison of Two Batteries for Fitness-for-Duty Testing

Abstract

Many businesses seek to deter impairment due to alcohol and other drugs (AOD's) on the job and feel a need to detect impaired performance due to AOD's directly, rather than by inference from chemical testing. Industry requirements for a performance test to be used in a fitness-for-duty program are that the test have very high specificity and sufficient sensitivity to detect many impaired workers much of the time. To determine if a newly developed computerized temporal acuity test battery had the requisite specificity and sensitivities comparable to those previously obtained with a computerized cognitive performance test battery, performance on the two test batteries was assessed before and after the administration of alcohol. Results indicated that the temporal factors tests did not exhibit sufficient specificity to satisfy industry requirements, however the cognitive tests exhibited high sensitivity and adequate specificity.