Airline Pilots May Hide Medical Problems According to New Research Study

According to a poster presentation from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2023 Annual Meeting, both civilian and military pilots report hiding key details about medical problems, including health status and medication use, although they are required to divulge such details.

The results were obtained from a cross-sectional study involving a web-based survey with over 3600 respondents, including 261 military pilots, 1097 professional civilian pilots, and 2383 nonprofessional civilian pilots. In addition to providing demographic details, respondents were asked to agree/disagree with statements related to behaviors such as whether they had:

• Misrepresented or did not provide health details on a written healthcare questionnaire
• Did not disclose prescription medication use
• Flew although a mental or physical symptom warranted evaluation.

Respondents accessed the study through advertisements on social media channels used by pilots and through US Air Force medical clinics.

Analysis revealed that 26.8% reported misrepresenting or withholding information and 7% did not report prescription medication use. Lead author William Hoffman, MD, University of North Dakota, found associations between reported healthcare avoidance behaviors and demographic factors, including higher rates of nondisclosure in military vs civilian respondents, female vs male respondents, union members vs non-union affiliated, and younger populations (25-40 y vs 60+ y). Previous research studies by Dr. Hoffman and others have reported that healthcare avoidance behaviors in pilots may be linked to fear of loss of medical certification to fly and other concerns associated with disclosure.