Depiction of personal protective equipment in popular war films.

. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is worn by military personnel to protect from combat trauma. War films may not represent PPE accurately, even when considered realistic. There is a risk that the subtle influence of films may subvert the understanding of PPE amongst military personnel and civilians. . An observational study compared the depiction of PPE within popular war films to real-life. Films were included if they depicted land-based warfare. Depiction of helmets, body armour, eye protection, gloves, combat boots and hearing protection was compared to benchmarks. Trends in PPE over time were analysed using linear regression. . There were 73 combat scenes viewed from 16 films. Combat boots were the most depicted (72 scenes; 99%); hearing protection was the least (two scenes; 3%). There were statistically significant differences in PPE adherence between real life and films for all items of PPE (< 0.05), except for combat boots (= 0.621). There were improvements over time for all PPE except for hearing protection. . PPE adherence in modern war films is poor, but has improved over time. There is a hypothetical risk that this has a negative impact on perceptions by both civilians and military personnel.