Laying the groundwork

The purpose of any research, in the broadest sense, is to add something new to what is already known. We don't want to spend time and resources on something that has been done before. We want to avoid 'reinventing the wheel.'

So, to prepare for a new investigation, one of the first things researchers do is to have a look at the findings of earlier studies on the same, or similar, topics. We want to see what has already been established about the subject matter of interest. If we're going to study a particular group of people -- an occupational community, in this case -- we look for earlier studies with that group. We do a literature search.

One of the first surprises I encountered when I set about planning my research was discovering that there were not very many prior studies that looked at the effects of stress on the health and well-being of people who fly in the civilian air transport industry.

Mind you, there has been plenty of research with pilots about the physical effects of flying, much of which had been carried out in military settings. There were far fewer published studies on the kinds of stress I was interested in: the worries and concerns arising out of events on the job -- what psychologists call psychosocial stressors (as opposed to physical stressors like acceleration, g-forces, heat, oxygen concentration, physical fatigue, and so on).

When I searched for published studies that looked at the effects of psychosocial stressors on the well-being of cabin crew, I found far fewer than I found for pilots. In fact, such studies were practically nonexistent! I did find a fairly large body of research having to do with certain kinds of health problems encountered by flight attendants -- studies of the effects of second-hand smoke in aircraft cabins, for example. But in 2002, there was virtually nothing on what flight attendants found stressful about their jobs, or how job stress might affect their sense of well-being.

This situation turned out to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there was little out there that I could build upon with my research. On the other hand, it began to look like a wide open field -- a real opportunity to pioneer some new turf!

Fortunately, I did find a lot of reports on studies that had been done with people who worked in other stressful occupations, such as police, firefighters and other first-responders, as well as groups like teachers and nurses. I pored over those for ideas about what kinds of measures and methods to use for my study of pilots and cabin crew.

Next: Developing a questionnaire...

** Copyright © 2007 by Bobbie Sullivan. All rights reserved. **