ABSTRACT
This study assessed the impact of "resting at home" vs. "resting away from home" among 272 British commercial airline pilots. The purpose of the investigation was two-fold; to see whether resting at home and resting away from home are equivalent in the quality of rest they provide pilots (in view of the increasing trend in the industry for encouraging pilots to "rest while away from home base"); and second, to highlight the factors that may be predictive of poor mental health and mood shifts while resting away or at home. On balance, pilots away from home managed to rest, but not really to relax (from a psychological perspective). Explanations of this are discussed, based on bi-variate and multi-variate statistical analyses.
Subject(s)
Aerospace Medicine , Rest , Stress, Psychological , Adult , Female , Housing , Humans , Male , Middle AgedABSTRACT
Within the context of a larger study on psychosocial stress, it was desirable to measure pilot performance. A variety of reasons dictated reliance upon self-reported performance. Since no suitable alternative was available, a measure of self-reported performance was devised by the authors. It is a 15-item inventory that measures performance as the summation of the 15 items weighted for their contribution to performance. The reported is not just for its intrinsic interest but to highlight the methods of construction, which could be applied to any similar vehicle.
Subject(s)
Aerospace Medicine , Stress, Psychological , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Self-Assessment , Surveys and Questionnaires , Task Performance and AnalysisABSTRACT
The literature reveals a clear deficiency in knowledge of how aircraft pilots cope with psychosocial stress. The subject is not only of intrinsic interest, but because of the nature of the pilots' personality and their work, the subject is also relevant to other occupations. In a study of the coping strategies of 442 commercial aircraft pilots, four factors were identified: stability of relationships and home life, reason and logic, social support, and wife's involvement. Implications for the study of other occupations are also highlighted.
Subject(s)
Adaptation, Psychological , Aerospace Medicine , Occupational Diseases/psychology , Space Flight , Stress, Psychological/psychology , Adult , Humans , Job Satisfaction , Male , Marriage , Mental Disorders/psychology , Social SupportABSTRACT
Recent psychological thinking has expressed dissatisfaction with life events/life changes research. The cornerstone of such research in aviation studies is the work of Alkov. We adapted Alkov's approach and used it to see if we could extend our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the life events/accident and incident relationship. Alkov's 22-item questionnaire was expanded and administered by post as part of a much larger study. Replies were received from 442 commercial pilots working for British companies. Multivariate analysis revealed that the pilots merely regarded the 22 items as comprising three trends--Emotional Losses, Pilot Characteristics, and Emotional Gains. The overall conclusion proposes that, while Alkov's approach is interesting, expansion of it reveals that background contextual factors should be examined. Additionally, pilots' perception of the effects of life events on accident/incident potential is made on relatively broad discriminations, rather than on finely tuned judgements.
