Pilots Fatigue and Performances

Literature Review

Introduction

Stress has been defined in different ways over the years. Originally, it was conceived of as pressure from the environment, then as strain within the person (Senechal, 2011). The generally accepted definition today is one of interaction between the situation and the individual. It is the psychological and physical state that results when the resources of the individual are not sufficient to cope with the demands and pressures of the situation.

According to Wright, (2010) “stress is more likely in some situations than others and in some individuals than others” (pg 154). Stress can undermine the achievement of goals, both for individuals and for organisations. Acute responses to stress may be in the areas of feelings (for example, anxiety, depression, irritability, fatigue), behaviour (for example, being withdrawn, aggressive, tearful, unmotivated), thinking (for example, difficulties of concentration and problem solving) or physical symptoms (for example, palpitations, nausea, headaches). If stress persists, there are changes in neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, autonomic and immunological functioning, leading to mental and physical ill health (for example anxiety, depression, heart disease) (Signal, 2010).

According to Zammit, (2009) “The prevention and management of workplace stress requires organisational level interventions, because it is the organisation that creates the stress. An approach that is limited to helping those already experiencing stress is analogous to administering sticking plaster on wounds, rather than dealing with the causes of the damage”. (p. 125)

An alternative analogy is trying to run up an escalator that's going down! Organisational interventions can be of many types, ranging from structural (for example, staffing levels, work schedules, physical environment) to psychological (for example, social support, control over work, participation).

Nowadays, fortunately, we no longer have arguments like this. Society has placed strict limits on the use of alcohol in transportation and nobody is still interested in discussing whether it is a cause, a contributor or a factor. We have just put an eff ort to manage it. (Welford, 2010).

Fatigue, like alcohol and smoking, seriously affects us. You will learn in this edition of HindSight that there are studies which formally compare the effects of alcohol and fatigue on our performance. This, as with smoking, does not mean that if you are fatigued you will have an accident. But even in theory, there is no firm agreement on a definition of what 'cause' includes. It may be time for us to stop arguing about how much of a 'cause' fatigue is and instead use the effort to manage it proactively! (Zhdanova, 2010).

Weber theory of Organization

Classical organization theory evolved during the first half of this century. It represents the merger of scientific management, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory.

Frederick Taylor (1917) developed scientific management theory (often called "Taylorism") at the beginning of this century. His theory had four basic principles: 1) find the one "best way" to perform each task, 2) carefully match each worker to each task, 3) closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators, and 4) the task of management is planning and ...