Reviewing Fatigue in Aviation

Abstract: Fatigue is a significant concern in aviation, impacting flight safety across all operational task and occupational fields. However, the concept of fatigue is not universally understood, and its effects differ between occupational fields in aviation. Contributing factors to fatigue (antecedents) are numerous and may differ by occupational group, with existing evidence varying significantly across groups. To address this, we analyzed each group separately to identify unique task characteristics and investigated the given findings on antecedents, systematically reporting and calculating effect sizes where available. This approach reveals that some occupational groups have been extensively researched while others have been largely neglected, and that most antecedents have been investigated using subjective methods, which may introduce measurement biases.