Our Interview with Captain Shalkar Amanov. He has huge experience in Civil Aviation and flown on many of modern airplane such as Boeing and Airbus family. He has spent more than 27 years in aviation industry and collected around 12 000 hours flight time. Captain Shalkar holding Aviation Masters degree level. He is one of expert in aviation of Kazakhstan.
Yerzhan;
What sort of psychological problems do airline employees most confront, and why?
Capatin Shalkar;
In fact, the recent research demonstrated to us that such psychological problems as stress and family relationship problems which have led us to psychiatric disorder such as anxiety and adjustment disorders. Also one of major symptom of disorder is fatigue.
Yerzhan;
Shall we try and find out solutions how to deal with this kind of psychological problems?
Captain Shalkar;
Yes absolutely. In general, among the general population the psychiatric disorders are not often but still regularly under identified. The impact of psychiatric disorders on pilot performance must not be underestimated. The understanding of psychiatric disorders among pilots is vital to keeping aviation safety, and to reducing the effect of these disorders on the pilot’s health and quality of life.
Yerzhan;
What are psychiatric disorders most widespread, worldwide?
Captain Shalkar;
The most widespread, worldwide, are anxiety disorders. The anxiety disorders group have apprehension and impaired function in prevalent. Anxiety disorders are stress dependent, and recent findings also indicate that stress produced by an event or by a persistent and chronic disorder is capable of causing secondary biological changes in specific brain structures.
Yerzhan;
What we know about stress today? And what people experience when gets the stress?
Captain Shalkar;
When we experience stress, the brain releases a stimulating stress hormone known as adrenaline, into our system. The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, muscles tense, the senses sharpen, and metabolism changes. We know about the follow definition of Stress could be considered as the relationship between the individual and surroundings that is judged by the individual as transcending human facilities and endangering human fine-being. The Stress has two effects; acute and chronic. Acute stress in an emergency or critical incident stress – is a sudden, novel, intense and relatively short period of duration. Chronic stress is associated with conditions in the workplace and individual reaction to these, and over prolonged period of time. Stress has been linked to safety outcomes, such as accident involvement. So that, the ability to recognize and manage stress in self and others is an important and vital non–technical skill for the modern pilot to develop.
Yerzhan;
How to people is able to resistant to stress?
Captain Shalkar;
A recent studying recognize two types of stress, controllable and out of control. Most often, when we think of stress, we think of the negative aspects of bad stress or stress out of control. If you let stress out of control it not only affects your own performance, but it can be influence the entire crew. Raymond B Flannery, M.D. identifies four qualities that embody the type of people who are stress resistant: (1) people who look at problems positively, as challenges to be met; (2) people have personal goals that are well defined; (3) people who lead sensible lifestyles with exercise and relaxation; and (4) people who are socially involved with others (Falluco, 2002). In general, what could help to cope with stress has some recommendations such as being positive is one of the ways to reduce stress. Hormones that promote the sense of happiness are released in response to a good laugh and a smile. That can be achieved by engaging in a positive chat with the colleagues. In addition even a normal productive conversation can reduce stress and relax the body. That can give even better results if positivity is coupled with regular exercise, proper breathing and posture. Displaying and feeling decisive provides the sense of control, which also reduces stress. While openly expressing opinion and being assertive is another good trait that reduces stress. Finally there is an expression: "Haste is the enemy of speed", which should be kept in mind in in order to act relaxed and put together, that way the situation is under control and does not overwhelm the crew. All of these and other recommendations would be used to keep stress under control and permit you to handle each situation as a professional with clear thought and not allow to develop Psychiatric Disorder.
Yerzhan;
What kind another serious type of disorder we could meet in everyday life?
Captain Shalkar;
Another serious type of disorder is adjustment disorder. This type is generally considered one of the most common mental disorder diagnosed in pilot. The disorder is considered a transient minor disorder in the broader scheme of the various disorders and their severity. Among the different reasons leading to adjustment disorder such as occupational, career, relationship and financial.
Yerzhan;
What are most evident and main reasons leading to adjustment disorder?
Captain Shalkar;
The most evident and main; relationships. If in case the pilot’s emotional upset and thereafter demonstrate weak performance is indeed connected to relationship problem, a clinician might very well understand his or her responsibility to common the effect of that upset. Any time when relationship and pilot behavior seem to be connected, everyone has to take notice, because so many examples interventions are required to guarantee public safety.
Yerzhan;
Who can help to cope with and provide emotional support?
Captain Shalkar;
The major symptoms which impair pilot professional responsibility are; depressed mood, fatigue, inattention, irritability, and decreased concentration. Some scientist are analyzed the psychosocial lives of pilots and realized those who struggle with marital distress may be less able to concentrate effectively on their piloting duties and responsibilities. Based on this it appears that the pilot who does not have sufficient emotional support from the spouse cannot cope with life events as well as pilots who are emotionally supported by positive from family relationship. In fact the strong and stable family relationship in particularly with spouse could be very good buffer against stress in the workplace; oppositely disagreement between wife and husband could intensify stress, guiding to impaired work performance.
Yerzhan;
What is your opinion about aviation marriage?
Captain Shalkar;
Yes, that is absolutely true , one a good and effective solution is aviation marriage, where are both member of family are involved in the aviation industry and with full serious understanding from inside how to deal by supporting each other. Also one research confirmed that in an airline marriage the spouse is able to operate as a very valuable social help system, in this wise helping the pilots in handling successfully with psychosocial stressors.
Yerzhan;
In the begging of our interview you mentioned about fatigue. Can you describe us fatigue definition?
Captain Shalkar;
Among different psychiatric symptoms of adjustment disorder, fatigue is major one. Also nowadays most successful international airlines are selecting ways where the company has minimum crews. At the same time the companies create very tense roster which most of time leads to fatigue. Fatigue can defined as tiredness that is connected with long hours of work, extended period without sleep, or requirements to work at times that are out of synch with the body’s biological or circadian rhythm. A flight itself could be fatiguing, with pilot being subjected to physical and mental stressors such a noise, vibration, hypoxia, temperature extremes, dryness, physical restraint, navigation problems, etc. Fatigue has been demonstrated to have negative effects on cognitive performance, motor skills and communication. Cognitive: After one night of no sleep, the performance can be reduced by 25%, and two nights without sleep can lead us to fall to near 40% of baseline. Motor Skills: One night of sleep deprivation shows performance greater than is currently acceptable for alcohol intoxication. A loss of two hours sleep demonstrates a performance decrement on psychomotor tasks equivalent to drinking two or three pints of beer. Communication: Sleep deprivation is shown to have a detrimental effect on communication. In an experiment of a four-man bomber crew it was found that, over a 36-hour exercise, there was a reduction in voice intonation and slowing of speech.
Yerazhan;
How airline pilots and cabin crew can recover from fatigue?
Captain Shalkar;
The key of recovering from fatigue is only through sleep.
Yerzhan;
So, what is your recommendation to sort out issues with stress and fatigue?
Captain Shalkar;
To analyzed and convinced how the problems of disorder, can seriously affect the safety in particularly anxiety and adjustment disorders, in this wise necessary;
- create training by taking into account all stressors aspects which could lead to disorders.
- by means of training to learn how to recognize the main symptoms disorders such as fatigue, mood depression etc.
- also to learn how to take stress under control and do not give chance develop to be one of reason of disorder
All of these procedures must help reinforce safety flights despite that the management of some companies still does not understand how to important this very complex question is directly linked to safety in the air.
Yerzhan;
Thank you Shalkar for your very interesting interview. I hope we can meet you in near future.
© Yerzhan Ibrayev. October, 1, 2021