Aircrew perceived stress: examining crew performance, crew position and captains personality.

Publisher: Aerospace Medical Association Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7501714 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0095-6562 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00956562 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Aviat Space Environ Med Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: <2005- > : Alexandria Va : Aerospace Medical Association
Original Publication: Washington, Aerospace Medical Assn.

Aerospace Medicine* ; Attitude to Health* ; Interprofessional Relations* ; Leadership* ; Occupations* ; Personality* ; Task Performance and Analysis*; Burnout, Professional/*etiology ; Burnout, Professional/*psychology ; Military Personnel/*psychology; Adult ; Analysis of Variance ; Burnout, Professional/classification ; Cluster Analysis ; Computer Simulation ; Emergencies/psychology ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Personality Tests ; Predictive Value of Tests ; Professional Competence ; Severity of Illness Index ; United States ; Videotape Recording

This study was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center as a part of a larger research project assessing the impact of captain's personality on crew performance and perceived stress in 24 air transport crews (5). Three different personality types for captains were classified based on a previous cluster analysis (3). Crews were comprised of three crewmembers: captain, first officer, and second officer/flight engineer. A total of 72 pilots completed a 1.5-d full-mission simulation of airline operations including emergency situations in the Ames Manned Vehicle System Research Facility B-727 simulator. Crewmembers were tested for perceived stress on four dimensions of the NASA Task Load Index after each of five flight legs. Crews were divided into three groups based on rankings from combined error and rating scores. High performance crews (who committed the least errors in flight) reported experiencing less stress in simulated flight than either low or medium crews. When comparing crew positions for perceived stress over all the simulated flights no significant differences were found. However, the crews led by the "Right Stuff" (e.g., active, warm, confident, competitive, and preferring excellence and challenges) personality type captains typically reported less stress than crewmembers led by other personality types.

Date Created: 20001122 Date Completed: 20010308 Latest Revision: 20041117

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