Workload of Swedish Special Forces Operators Experienced During Stressful Simulation Training: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Military Science
• Human Factors Engineering
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Special Forces (SF) Operators undergo rigorous training to manage stress in unpredictable situations.
• A stress week was implemented at a Swedish military facility to evaluate operator limits.
• The study focused on stress and workload during firefighting and military medicine simulations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the effects of stress and workload on SF Operators during simulated combat support tasks.
• To compare perceived stress levels between firefighting and military medicine training scenarios.
• To assess the applicability of the "train as you fight" principle in SF training.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study was conducted during a dedicated stress week.
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) was used to measure perceived workload.
• Six NASA-TLX subscales (mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, performance, effort, frustration) served as stress indicators.
• ANOVA was employed to analyze and compare NASA-TLX ratings across different tasks.

Main Results:

• Firefighting simulations were perceived as significantly more demanding than military medicine simulations by both participants and instructors.
• Participants reported higher mental demand, physical demand, frustration, and effort during firefighting tasks.
• No significant differences were found in perceived performance or temporal demands between the two simulation types.

Conclusions:

• Challenging training scenarios, such as those in the "train as you fight" doctrine, allow for the assessment of perceived stress and performance in SF Operators.
• Firefighting simulations appear to induce a higher stress response compared to military medicine simulations in this context.
• The findings support the use of realistic simulations to evaluate operator capabilities under stress.