Fatigue Assessment Methods Applied to Air Traffic Control – A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which supervises the activities and provision of air services, as well as Brazil which is a signatory, issued a formal recommendation pointing fatigue as a criterion of high impact on aeronautical activities and in maintaining the safety of aircraft operations. The proposing management of human fatigue following scientific principles in two approaches: one prescriptive, which stipulates regulatory prescriptive limits, and the other, not mandatory, for data monitoring through a system called FRMS (Fatigue Risk Management System). This article is a bibliometric study on the scientific production in fatigue applied to air traffic control. A bibliometric survey was conducted on three databases “SCOPUS”, “ENGINEERING VILLAGE”, and “WEB OF SCIENCE”, resulting in only 7 documents. Though a survey in other web sources, books, and international regulations was conducted, resulting in 13 methods. Among the subjective methods are: Sleep diaries; Visual Analogue Scale to Evaluate Fatigue Severity (VAS-F); Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS); Samn Perelli Scale (SPS); Epiworth Sleepiness Scale; Stanford Sleepiness Scale. By the results, subjective methods have advantages, such as speed and ease of administration, application on paper or computer, the minimal interruption to the crew, many studies have used SPS and KSS and provide data for comparison. And, disadvantages, such as: relatively easy to cheat, may not have face validity. Until this moment, prescription limits have been adopted in Brazil following regulations, but the fatigue assessment and monitoring phase are still in the study and implementation strategy phase.