Use of a Motion Sickness History Questionnaire for Prediction of Simulator Sickness

This research assessed the usefulness of the Motion History Questionnaire (MHQ) for the prediction of simulator sickness, a form of motion sickness experienced by pilots training in ground-based flight simulators. Four MHQ scoring keys were compared: (1) the original MHQ key which had been validated on a sample of U.S. Navy student pilots exposed to Coriolis forces, (2 and 3) two keys which had been validated on a sample of civilian college students exposed to simulated ship motions, and (4) a simulator sickness key empirically derived in the present research and cross-validated. Navy and Marine Corps aviators (N = 456) filled out the MHQ prior to their regularly scheduled flight simulator training and were divided into validation and cross-validation samples. All scoring keys were predictive of reported symptoms of sickness, but highest correlations were obtained with the empirically-derived simulator sickness (SS) key. It is suggested that the SS key be used for self-testing so that pilots may be made aware of their risk for developing simulator sickness.