ABSTRACT
The purpose of present study was to examine the health problems for long-haul flight travelers. A total of 242 travelers who have been overseas traveling were interviewed. The questionnaire were designed to determine the traveler's background information, trips, cabin seats, preferable scat position, physical activities in flight, eating diary (foods or drink), and discomfort rating for body areas during the flight period. In addition, a validated Verran and Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale was used to measure sleep disturbance, sleep effectiveness, and sleep supplementation. Results of the analysis showed that there were less than 20% of the travclers understood economy-class syndrome or Deep Vein Thrombosis. About 67.8% of the travelers have preferable seat positions, and there were about 78%, 18% and 4% of them preferring for window side, aisfe side and near the emergency exit, respectively. Only 30% of the travelers could take enough rest and less than 30% of the travelers would do physical activities (e.g. in-scat exercises, upper body and breathing exercises, Sh011 walks etc.) more than three times during flight. About 50% of travelers drink less than two cups of water. However, more than 60% of the travelers want to drink some cups of coffee or tea. In addition, 29% of the travelers would drink: alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, whiskey etc.). For uncomfortable rating by body map, the most musculoskeletal problems during flight period were reported with neck: (48%), low baek area (46%), knees (42%), shoulders area (40%), and thigh (36%). For the overall rating, about 33% of the travelers feel uncomfortable after long-haul flight. For sleep problems, the mean scores of sleep
disturbance, sleep effectiveness, and sleep supplementation were 346.4, 120.3, and 197.3 respectively. Furthermore, an ANOV A was conducted to examine the effects of trips and cabin class on sleep quality. Results of analysis showed that there were significant differences in sleep quality between trips and cabin class. Travelers have higher sleep disturbance, and lower sleep effectiveness after long-haul trips (e.g. from Taiwan to USA or European area). Of course, higher sleep disturbance, and lower sleep effectiveness could be reported by travelers in economic-class. Results of present study could provide the information for promoting health of long-haul flight travelers and airline companies have the responsibility to assist and educate in preventing health problems for long-haul flight.
