Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise and pilot performance: enhanced functioning under search-and-rescue flying conditions

Studies have shown that autonomous mode behavior is one cause of aircraft fatalities due to pilot error. In such cases, the pilot is in a high state of psychological and physiological arousal and tends to focus on one problem, while ignoring more critical information. This study examined the effect of training in physiological self-recognition and regulation, as a means of improving crew cockpit performance. Seventeen pilots were assigned to the treatment and control groups matched for accumulated flight hours. The treatment group contained 4 pilots from HC-130 Hercules aircraft and 4 HH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilots; the control group contained 3 pilots of HC-130s and 6 helicopter pilots. During an initial flight, physiological data were recorded on each crewmember and an instructor pilot rated individual crew performance. Eight crewmembers were then taught to regulate their own physiological response levels using Autogenic-Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). The remaining participants received no training. During a second flight, treatment participants showed significant improvement in performance (rated by the same instructor pilot as in pretests) while controls did not improve. The results indicate that AFTE management of high states of physiological arousal may improve pilot performance during emergency flying conditions.     

近10年中国飞行员心理健康状况的元分析

[摘要] 目的：探讨近10年中国飞行员的心理健康状况。方法：搜索2001-2010年10年间所有用SCL-90量表研究中国飞行员心理健康的文献,对符合要求的文献用元分析和横断历史研究的方法进行重新处理和分析。结果：（1）2000年到2001年飞行员SCL-90得分增加,2001-2009年飞行员SCL-90数据呈U型曲线,05年得数最低,09年得分最高,其中人际敏感、抑郁、焦虑、恐怖四个因子的分数在这十年中的变化显著;（2）SCL-90各因子的平均效果量在-0.27到-0.46之间。其中“躯体化”、“抑郁”、“焦虑”“恐怖”四个因子与一般成人常模差异不显著,其余五个因子均与常模差异显著,且分数要低于常模;（3）民航飞行员SCL-90的各个因子得分要低于军事飞行员,但未达到显著性水平。     

飞行中惊吓和惊奇的管理——拓展的Landman模型

在飞行活动中,飞行员的惊吓和惊奇反应是导致飞行失控的重要因素。惊吓和惊奇反应可能使飞行员熟练训练过的操作程序和技能被遗忘,取而代之的是不适当的直觉性的行为或草率的决策。现有的使用飞行模拟器的研究表明,Landman模型对减轻飞行员惊吓和惊奇的训练有重要价值。在Landman模型的基础上,我们加入了飞行员心理能力的个体间差别（即拓展的Landman模型）,因此拓展的Landman模型对于飞行员的选拔和训练将具有重要意义。     

Pilot personality and crew coordination: implications for training and selection

The performance of pilots can be construed as a product of skill, attitude, and personality factors. Although a great deal of effort within the aviation community has been focused on ensuring technical expertise, and new efforts highlight attitudes associated with crew coordination, personality factors have been relatively unexplored. Further, it is argued that past failures to find linkages between personality and performance were due to a combination of inadequate statistical modeling, premature performance evaluation, and/or the reliance on data gathered in contrived as opposed to realistic situations. The goal of the research presented in this article is to isolate subgroups of pilots along performance-related personality dimensions and to document limits on the impact of crew coordination training between the groups. Two samples of military pilots were surveyed in the context of training in crew coordination. Three different profiles were identified through cluster analysis of personality scales. These clusters replicated across samples and predicted attitude change following training in crew coordination.     

Terrorists and Democrats: Individual Reactions to International Attacks

Three experiments conducted in 1997 and 1998 explored individual responses to reported fictitious international conflict involving the United States and other nations. Participants escalated the conflictual level of their responses to repeated attacks. In Experiment 1, escalation of conflict was greater in response to terrorist attacks than to military ones. In Experiment 2, after the initial attacks, men were more conflictual in responding to terrorist attacks by a democratic nation than by a nondemocratic nation, whereas the opposite pattern was found for women. In Experiment 3, participants responded with a higher level of conflict to terrorist attacks on military targets than to attacks on cultural/educational targets. Participants with greater personality dominance showed steeper escalation of conflict in their responses across successive attacks. These results are interpreted within the framework of an image theory of international relations and an expansion of the democratic peace hypothesis.     

No Evidence of Suicide Increase Following Terrorist Attacks in the United States: An Interrupted Time‐Series Analysis of September 11 and Oklahoma City

There is substantial evidence of detrimental psychological sequelae following disasters, including terrorist attacks. The effect of these events on extreme responses such as suicide, however, is unclear. We tested competing hypotheses about such effects by employing autoregressive integrated moving average techniques to model the impact of September 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing on monthly suicide counts at the local, state, and national level. Unlike prior studies that provided conflicting evidence, rigorous time series techniques revealed no support for an increase or decrease in suicides following these events. We conclude that while terrorist attacks produce subsequent psychological morbidity and may affect self and collective efficacy well beyond their immediate impact, these effects are not strong enough to influence levels of suicide mortality.     

Terrorist threat and employees' perceived ability to cope with organizational change

This study investigated the impact of the perceived threat of terrorism on employees' ability to cope with organizational change as well as potentially underlying psychological mechanisms related to work satisfaction and initiative. Three days after the 2006 thwarted terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, participants were reminded of terrorist threat (by pictures of terrorist attacks) reported lower levels in their ability to cope with organizational change, as well as lower levels of work satisfaction, than did participants who were not reminded of terrorist threat. Three months later, the same terror salience manipulation had no differential effect on these variables. Mediation analyses revealed that work satisfaction mediated the impact of terror salience on employees' ability to cope with organizational change.     

Co-operation processes in dynamic environment management: evolution through training experienced pilots in flying a highly automated aircraft

Dynamic environment management (process control, aircraft piloting, etc.) increasingly implies collective work components. Pragmatic purposes as well as epistemological interests raise important questions on collective activities at work. In particular, linked to the technological evolution in flight management, the role of the 'collective fact' appears as a key point in reliability. Beyond the development of individual competencies, the quality of the 'distributed' crew activity has to be questioned. This paper presents an empirical study about how experienced pilots co-ordinate their information and actions during the last period of training on a highly automated cockpit. A task of disturbance management (engine fire during takeoff) is chosen as amplifying cognitive requirements. Analysis focuses on the transitions between the main task and the incident to be managed. Crew performance and co-operation between two pilots are compared in three occurrences of the same task: the results are coherent with the hypothesis of a parallel evolution of the crew performance and its internal co-operation, and show that prescribed explicit co-operation is more present on action than on information about the 'state of the world'. Methodological issues are discussed about the possible effects of the specific situation of training, and about the psychological meaning of the results.     

How Much Distress Is Too Much on Deployed Operations? Validation of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) for Application in Military Operational Settings

The aim of this study was threefold: (a) to assess the factor structure of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) to determine whether interpreting the scale as a single dimensional measure of psychological distress is justified in military operational setting; (b) to validate the K10 for mental health surveillance in operational settings against self-reported occupational impairment; (c) to evaluate whether the K10 has better discriminatory power than de facto standards for mental health surveillance on deployment, namely the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist, Civilian version. A convenience sample of Canadian Armed Forces personnel serving in Afghanistan (N = 1,264) completed self-report measures of psychological distress and occupational impairment. On examination of 6 competing models, the authors determined that interpreting the K10 as a measure of unspecified psychological distress is justified. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, they identified new cutoff values for dichotomous and polychotomous scoring methods. After comparing the area beneath the ROC curves for each of the 3 mental health surveillance questionnaires, the authors determined that all measures perform well as predictors of self-rated occupational impairment, with values ranging from .86 to .90. These results highlight the importance of cross-setting validation and demonstrate that validating psychological screening questionnaires against self-report measures of occupational impairment can be a useful strategy for understanding the manifestation of psychological distress on deployed military operations.     

Israeli Adolescents' help-seeking behaviours in relation to terrorist attacks: the perceptions of students, school counsellors and teachers

Exposure to terror seriously threatens the well-being of children and adolescents. School mental health professionals cope simultaneously with the counselling needs of their clients and with their own fears and doubts. This report is based on two studies. The first study was concerned with the perceptions of Israeli adolescents of the place of terrorist attacks in their lives. It also examined adolescents' help-seeking attitudes and behaviours in relation to terrorist attacks. The second study investigated Israeli school counsellors' and teachers' perceptions of their own roles and professional attitudes in relation to terror. A better understanding of the effects of terrorism on adolescents as well as potentially effective approaches to coping with its individual and organisational outcomes are proposed.     

Postdeployment Psychological Health and Interpersonal Problems Among Air Force Mental Health Personnel

This study is one of the first to use validated screening measures to examine the rates of self-reported mental health and interpersonal problems following deployment of military mental health personnel (MMHP). Research has examined the impact of deployment on military personnel finding 10.2% to 29.0% screen positive for at least one mental health problem. However, little is known about impacts of deployment among MMHP. Utilizing health data collected three to twelve months post-deployment from a sample of 759 Air Force MMHP, this study examined rates of positive screens for psychological health or interpersonal problems, subsequent confirmation of positive screens by a medical provider upon examination, and the demographic characteristics associated with psychological health or interpersonal problems. The study found 13.9% screened positive for “possible or probable PTSD,” 4.6% for depressive symptoms, 3.9% for alcohol problems, and 12.6% for interpersonal problems. In total, nearly 26% screened positive for one or more psychological or interpersonal problem. Of those who screened positive, 48.5% of depressive problems, 36.0% of PTSD, 20.0% of alcohol problems and 29.7% of interpersonal problems were confirmed upon subsequent examination by a medical provider. Those who screened positive were more likely to be (a) female, (b) separated, widowed, or divorced, (c) a mental health nurse or psychiatric nurse practitioner, and (d) deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. The significance, limitations, and implications of the results, along with recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Family-Centered Care to Promote Successful Community Reintegration After War: It Takes a Nation

The papers in this section focus on public health responses and implementation considerations in addressing the challenges military families confront when parents go to war. While many military families show resilience, the challenges resulting from a decade of war with multiple deployments are detailed, as are innovative military and civilian programs designed to help service members and their families reintegrate successfully into the community. As more and more service members leave active duty, the burden of meeting military families’ psychological needs will transition from the Department of Defense (DoD) and into the Veterans Administration (VA) and civilian arenas. While many strategies to support successful readjustment are offered, in this time of dwindling mental health resources and competing needs, it is unclear what priority the broader society places on meeting the needs of returning service members and their families. A growing emphasis on family-centered care in the Veterans Administration may help meet this gap.     

事故后飞行员心理健康状况动态研究

目的 研究飞行事故后,事故发生单位飞行员心理健康状况在时间维度上的变化规律。方法 采用症状自评量表（Symptom Checklist 90,SCL-90）对飞行事故发生单位的78名飞行员,于事故发生后3天、15天、2月以及6月进行调查分析。结果 飞行事故后,事故发生单位飞行员出现严重的急性心理应激反应,早期以躯体化为主,后期以焦虑、抑郁等负性情绪为主。结论 飞行事故后,应加强心理危机干预,消除和减轻飞行员的心理应激反应。     

军校医学生心理应激影响因素的通径分析

目的探讨军校医学生心理应激的影响因素及其相互作用方式。方法选用军校医学生日常困扰评定量表、应付方式问卷、特质焦虑问卷、自尊量表和流调中心用抑郁量表对935名军校医学生进行测试，采用SPSS10．0对数据进行统计分析。结果日常困扰主要通过间接作用影响军校医学生的心理应激；自尊和特质焦虑对心理应激具有直接作用和间接作用。应付方式是日常困扰、个性特点影响心理应激的中间环节。结论维护军校医学生的身心健康，可以把优化其个性结构，加强应对训练作为一个切入点。     

Age and airline accidents

The issuance of a commercial pilot's license is contingent upon the fulfillment of stated minimum flight time. These requirements imply that total flight time and aircraft flight time can be equated with safety. For this reason, aircraft accidents involving licensed, professional pilots become difficult to explain. This study examined the relationship of pilot experience to accidents by comparing pilots' age and experience in 188 accidents involving corporate/executive pilots. The more severe accidents were expected to involve younger, less experienced pilots. The data in this study, however, refute this expectation. The age, aircraft time, or total time difference between groups was not significant. More research, both in the field and under controlled conditions, may bring in the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance.     

Coping and anxiety in college students after the September 11th terrorist attacks

This study investigated the presence of a stress response after the September 11^th terrorist attacks in a sample of indirectly affected college students living in Boston, Massachusetts. Anxiety was examined at two time intervals, approximately 2 and 4 months after the attacks. Methods of coping with the stress of the attacks (assessed using the COPE Inventory) and their impact on initial and longer-term anxiety were also examined. Results demonstrated that the majority of college students in the study were severely psychologically impacted initially by the terrorist attacks. However, this initial impact appears to decay over time for most people. Several potentially maladaptive coping strategies were found to be predictive of initial anxiety, including denial, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement, and focus on and venting of emotions. However, only focus on and venting of emotions was found to be uniquely predictive of longer-term anxiety.     

The Need for a Continuum of Trauma Services

Summary

Since September 2000, residents of Israel have experienced a prolonged period of terrorist attacks that shows no sign of abating. The ramifications of the ongoing trauma permeate every facet of life. Since existing services provided by government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are unable to meet the needs that have emerged, the Continuum of Trauma Services (CTS) was developed for victims of terrorist attacks, their families, friends, emergency and mental health professionals and the community at large. This article also describes the Israel Trauma Coalition and its interest groups, which may be seen as the embodiment of an evolving CTS.     

Very Young Child Well-being in Military Families: A Snapshot

Since the September 11th attacks on the U.S., more than 2 million children have experienced parental deployment during their early years, with potentially lasting impact. When a parent is deployed, a number of factors may affect the well-being of the service member and his/her family. One parental factor—posttraumatic stress disorder or distress—might be particularly powerful in its effect on young children and the family system. We analyzed baseline data from an intervention development project which focused on supporting military families with very young children during post-deployment. The purpose of this research is to understand the relationships between parental mental health status, parenting stress, couple functioning, and young child well-being. The effects of mental health status of home-front and service member parents and the role of couple functioning on parent–child interactions and behavioral problems of young children were examined in a sample of military families during the post-deployment period. Findings suggest that service member posttraumatic stress symptoms are associated with higher parental report of child behavior problems. Higher quality of the couple relationship appears to lessen the impact of parental posttraumatic stress but is not related to parent perceptions of child behavior concerns. Implications for future research with military families are discussed.     

Dispositional and situational coping and mental health among Palestinian political ex-prisoners

We examined, first, differences in dispositional and situational coping, and psychological distress between political ex-prisoners and their matched controls, and second, coping effectiveness in protecting mental health from impacts of imprisonment and military trauma. Thirdly, we tested the hypothesis that compatibility ("goodness of fit") between dispositional and situational coping would predict low psychological distress. Participants were 184 men recruited from a Palestinian community sample, 92 were former political prisoners and 92 non-prisoners. The dispositional coping was assessed as a general response style to hypothetical stressors and situational coping as responses to their own traumatic experiences. Psychological distress was measured by SCL-90-R, and posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and somatoform symptoms by scales based on CIDI 2.1 diagnostic interview. The results showed that, compared to non-prisoners, the political ex-prisoners employed less avoidant, denying, and emotion-focused coping strategies. Military trauma was associated with avoidant and denying coping only among non-prisoners. The ex-prisoners showed more mental health and medical problems, especially when exposed to military trauma. None of the coping styles or strategies were effective in protecting the mental health in general or in either groups. However, main effect results revealed that the high level of active and constructive and low level of emotion-focused coping were associated with low levels of psychiatric symptoms and psychological distress.     

Family Systems and Ecological Perspectives on the Impact of Deployment on Military Families

The scope of sustained military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has placed great demands on the Armed Forces of the United States, and accordingly, military families have been faced with deployments in more rapid succession than ever before. When military parents fulfill occupational duties during wartime, military children and families face multiple challenges, including extended separations, disruptions in family routines, and potentially compromised parenting related to traumatic exposure and subsequent mental health problems. Such challenges can begin to exert a significant toll on the well-being of both individuals and relationships (e.g., marital, parent–child) within military families. In order to respond more effectively to the needs of military families, it is essential that mental health clinicians and researchers have a better understanding of the challenges faced by military families throughout the entire deployment experience and the ways in which these challenges may have a cumulative impact over multiple deployments. Moreover, the mental health field must become better prepared to support service members and families across a rapidly evolving landscape of military operations around the world, including those who are making the transition from active duty to Veteran status and navigating a return to civilian life and those families in which parents will continue to actively serve and deploy in combat zones. In this article, we utilize family systems and ecological perspectives to advance our understanding of how military families negotiate repeated deployment experiences and how such experiences impact the well-being and adjustment of families at the individual, dyadic, and whole family level.