STRESS

Developed with assistance from the Australian

National Transportation Safety Committee Transport Safety Bureau under the Indonesian
Human Factors for Transport Safety Investigators Transport Safety Assistance Package
Course objectives
• Recognise the stress and its various sources.
• Recognise the symptom of stress.
• Understand the impact of stress to human
performance.
• Relationship between stress and error.
• The importance of stress management strategies.

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Overview
• Stress
• Stressors
• Life stress
• Stress in aviation
• Effect of stress
• Response to stress
• Stress and error
• Stress management

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 Stress
“Stress arises when individuals perceive that they cannot adequately cope with the demands being made on
them or with threats to their well-being (Lazarus).”

“Stress, it is argued, can only be sensibly defined as a perceptual phenomenon arising from a comparison
between the demand on the person and his or her ability to cope. An imbalance in this mechanism, when
coping is important, gives rise to the experience of stress, and to the stress response..”

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 Stress
• When stress happens, the brain will send a
command to the nerve to release adrenalin
as energy for the muscle.
• Part of the brain called hypothalamus, will
send corticotrophin to the blood.
• Corticotrophin will make adrenal gland
produce more stress hormones
(glucocorticoids). This hormone will increase
the blood glucose to create energy.
• Glucocorticoids will affect the important part
of the brain relating to the memory
(hippocampus).
• The stress event will be memorized to be
avoided in the future.

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 Stress
• Stress can be acute
– Sudden and unexpected event
– e.g., Engine fire or flame out;

• Stress can be chronic

– Continues for long period
– e.g., relationship or financial problem

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Stressors
A stressor
is a
stimulus for
stress.

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Types of Stressors

• Environmental
– Noise;
– Vibration;
– Temperature;
– Hypoxia;
– Fatigue;
– Humidity

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Types of Stressors
• Life
– Emotional
– Domestic;
– Social;
– Financial;
– Event on everyday life;

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Types of Stressors
• Organisational;
– Poor communication;
– Workload;
– Lack of career development;
– Inadequate salary;
– Bureaucratic process;

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Life stress (Holmes & Rahe)
• Husband or wife die 100
• Getting sick or involve in an accident 53
• Divorce 50
• Getting married 50
• Loosing job 47
• Retired 45
• Pregnancy 40
• Sexual difficulty 39
• Adapting new working environment 39
• Financial problem 38
• Holiday 13

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Life stress
Cumulative score
• ≤ 60 : free of life stress
• 60 – 80 : normal life stress
• 80 – 100 : high life stress
• ≥ 100 : serious life stress

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Stress in aviation
• Being checked;
• G force, Noise, vibration;
• Monotone task;
• Emergency situation;
• Circadian disturbance;
• Conflict with other crew;
• Away from family;
• Lack of rest (fatigue);
• Etc.

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Impact of stress
• Stressors are cumulative and additive;
• Every individual has limit;
• Exceed this limit can be hard to cope and result in
stress overload;

Continued stress can create physical symptoms:

• Insomnia;
• Lack of appetite;
• Headache;
• Irritability.

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 Stress and Performance

UNDER
Performance

OPTIMUM

OVER

Stress
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Stress and Workload

Moderate task demand,

Low workload
Low stress

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Stress and Workload

Moderate task demand, High workload

High stress

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Response to Stress
– Physiological response; increase heart beat,
blood pressure, sweating, dizziness.
– Cognitive response; decreasing in ability to
concentrate, difficulty to make decision.
– Emotional response; anxiety, anger, panic.
– Behavioral response; fight, to fight the situation
and flight, to avoid the situation.

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 Stress and error
• Omission
– Complete omission of an action;
– Forget to put the landing gear down in high workload situation;
• Error
– Incorrect response;
– Selecting the good engine when an engine fire warning
activated;
• Queuing
– Delaying necessary action in an inappropriate order or priority;
– Fail to select flap for take off in high work load from ATC and
traffic;

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Stress and error
• Filtering
– Rejection of certain task due to overload
– Accept inaccuracy during precision approach
• Coning of attention
– Increase stress leads to decreasing attention scan
– Could not receive (ignoring) GPWS warning;
– Lack / break down instrument scan;
• Regression
– Under stress may revert to most well-known pattern
– Emergency revert to previous type flown
• Escape
– Totally freeze

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Stress Management
Manageable stress
• Improve performance;
• Improve vigilance;
• Improve in decision making.

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Stress management
• Recognise what factor causing stress
• Deal with those factors that can be
removed
• Priorities
• Follow standard operating procedure
• Use checklist
• Time management is important

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Stress management
• Delegate when appropriate
• Involve other people; communication is important
• Learn to relax
• Take a short break
• Keep fit
• Maintain healthy diet and lifestyle
• Recognise your own limitation

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