This study assessed the sources of perceived stress for aircrews
taking centrifuge training and factors perceptibly increase or
alleviate the perceived stress of trainee when undergoing centrifuge
training. A questionnaire (see Appendix A) was distributed to
military aircrew in Taiwan who were scheduled to undergo
human-use centrifuge between January 2009 and December 2009.
Military aircrews were approached immediately after undergoing
human-use centrifuge training and asked to complete the selfadministered
questionnaire. It contained 30 items identified
from military instructors and aviation physiology experts. Each
used a five-point Likert scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree; 2 ¼ disagree;
3 ¼ neutral; 4 ¼ agree; 5 ¼ strongly agree). Respondents were
asked to rank the stress-influence items. The questionnaire was
piloted on a small sample (48) of subjects to assess its content
validity, internal consistency and reliability. It was then directly
distributed to the 611 military aircrew members scheduled to take
centrifuge training in 2009. Out of these, 460 respondents
returned completed usable questionnaires, which, with the 48
pilot responses, provided a total of 508 usable responses. Table 1
summarizes the sample characteristics. Among the 508 respondents,
all military ranks were well represented (39 medical technicians;
73 student-officers; 105 Second Lieutenants; 82 First
Lieutenants; 48 Captains; 51 Majors; 88 Lieutenant Colonels, and
22 Colonels). Forty percent of the respondents had more than 500
flight hours and approximately one-third (32%) had more than
1,000 flight hours. About 34 percent of the respondents were
pilots of Taiwanese second-generation jet fighters, (including F-
16A/B, Mirage 2000-5 and IDF). Finally, more than 27 percent of
the respondents had served in the air force for more than ten
years.
Factor analysis was used to identify underlying dimensions of
subjective stress. Next, an analysis of variance was used to assess
whether stressor variations existed among respondents, according
to military rank, kind of jet fighter, or length of service. A Scheffé
multiple range test (with the alpha level set at 0.05) was performed
to specify which means were significantly different.