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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1514812
Mental Health of Airline Pilots in France: Insights from an Anonymous Online Survey
Provisionally accepted
Madeleine Percheron 1*
Bernard Prouvost-Keller 1
Jonathan Allouche 1
Michel Benoit 2
Christian Pradier 1- 1 Département de Santé Publique, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice, Nice, France
- 2 Service de Psychiatrie Adulte, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice, Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Background:The Germanwings crash highlighted the need to better understand the mental health of airline pilots. Airline pilots are exposed to psychosocial risks, and they may constitute a population at risk of developing anxiety and depressive disorders. However, mental health remains difficult to assess in this population due to the risk of being declared unfit to fly. Scientific studies on mental disorders in airline pilots are rare, and the results are heterogeneous. To date, no study has been conducted describing anxiety or depressive disorders among European airline pilots.Method: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study using an anonymous online self-questionnaire. Pilots were recruited from the National Union of Airline Pilots between September 1 and October 16, 2022. Findings: Out of the 1220 pilots surveyed, 25.4% of them suffered from anxiety according to the Hospital and Depression Scale (HAD) : 14.4% suspected anxiety disorders and 11.0% confirmed anxiety disorders. Additionally, 13.1% of subjects reported depressive symptoms, including 8.9% suspected depressive disorders and 4.2% confirmed depressive disorders, according to the HAD. More than a third of the sample (40.1%) showed alcohol misuse. Interpretation: This study represents a major advancement in understanding the mental health of European airline pilots. This work highlights the need to implement prevention programs targeting profiles at risk of developing anxiety and/or depressive disorders. Our study also showed that a large proportion of subjects exhibited alcohol misuse, which requires prevention efforts to reduce health risks. In the future, conducting longitudinal studies would further strengthen our knowledge on this topic.Fundings:This study was supported by the Public Health Department of the University Hospital of Nice
Keywords: Depressive Disorder, Anxiety disorder (AD), Mental Health, Alcohol con sumption, airline pilots, aviation medicine, Suicidal thought
Received: 21 Oct 2024; Accepted: 20 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Percheron, Prouvost-Keller, Allouche, Benoit and Pradier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Madeleine Percheron, Département de Santé Publique, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice, Nice, France
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