Investigation of quality of life and mental health of pilots about to fly different aircraft

ZHANG Qing; ZHANG Yueping; FU Weihong; FENG Qing; CHEN Lubin; ZHAO Wenbin

Abstract：Objective To investigate the quality of life and mental health of pilots who are to fly a different aircraft so as to provide reference for improving the pilots' health.Methods Three hundred and eighty-four pilots who were about to fly a different aircraft were admitted to our hospital for medical checkups between January 2012 and December 2014. Their health status was investigated with the MOS 36-item short-form health survey questionnaire (SF-36), symptom checklist-90 (SCL-90) and general information questionnaire scale.Results ①The scores of the 384 pilots from such items as physiological functioning, general health,social functioning, emotional functioning and mental health in SF-36 were significantly higher than those of the general population(P<0.01), whereas the score of the bodily pain was significantly lower in these pilots than that of the general population(P<0.01).②The positive rate of psychological health among these pilots was 9.4%. Their scores from each factor of SCL-90 were clearly lower than those of the norm of China (P<0.01) except for somatization, anxiety, phobia anxiety and psychoticisim. Their total and subscales scores of SCL-90 were all lower than those of the PLA norms (P<0.01).③Pearson correlation analysis showed that there were significantly negative correlations between the overall score in SF-36, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, emotional functioning, mental health and the total and subscales scores of SCL-90.Conclusion Military pilots who are about to fly a different aircraft enjoy better quality of life and mental health than the general population, and quality of life is closely correlated with mental health.