Barriers to symptom disclosure and healthcare seeking among civilian aviation pilot trainees

Abstract

Reluctance to disclose new mental or physical health symptoms and seek healthcare can be exacerbated among pilots due to fear of jeopardizing one’s aviation career. The current qualitative study focused on undergraduate pilot trainees’ beliefs about healthcare and help seeking behaviors. Individual semi-structured virtual interviews were completed with 28 undergraduate pilot trainees to identify barriers to symptom disclosure and health care service utilization. Six thematic barriers to help seeking were identified, including (lack of) health system literacy, fear, delay in seeking care, lack of understanding the FAA aeromedical process, trust, and financial constraints. These findings contribute to understanding healthcare avoidant behavior among aviators early in their training and have implications for industry leaders in considering revisions to health-related communications, education, and services available to pilot trainees and across the aviation industry more broadly.