Protective Effects of Emotional Intelligence and Proactive Coping on Civil Pilots' Mental Health

INTRODUCTION: Pilots' mental health is an issue of crucial importance that may endanger flight safety. As such, it is of profound significance to address the question of what characteristics are protective of mental health among pilots. The present study aimed to explore the indirect effects of emotional intelligence (El) on depression and anxiety via proactive coping, and examine the moderating role of previous flight experience (PFE) in the conditional indirect effect of El on depression through proactive coping. METHODS: A cross-sectional regression design was used to measure El (Trait Meta Mood Scale), proactive coping (Proactive Coping Scale), depression (The PHQ-9), and anxiety (The GAD-7) among 319 Chinese civil pilots from China Southern Airlines. Mediation and moderated mediation effects were explored using regression analyses and were confirmed by the bootstrapping approach. RESULTS: Pilots reported relatively low levels of depression (M = 0.39, SD = 0.24) and anxiety (M = 0.22, SD = 0.23). Married pilots had higher levels of depression (t = 2.46) and anxiety (t = 3.07) than single pilots. Proactive coping mediated the association between El and depression (B = 0.25), as well as the relationship between El and anxiety (B = 0.23). Moreover, conditional process analysis showed that PFE moderated the indirect effect of El on depression through proactive coping (b(3) = 0.005), in which simple slope analysis showed a stronger mediating effect for pilots with more PFE (simple slope = 0.14). DISCUSSION: The results showed that El and proactive coping had protective potential in the prevention of depression and anxiety. Implications for the promotion of mental health and diminishing depression and anxiety among pilots are discussed.