Skip Navigation



Occupational Medicine Advance Access published online on June 27, 2006
Occupational Medicine, doi:10.1093/occmed/kql038
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
56/6/393    most recent
kql038v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Jensen, O. C.
Right arrow Articles by Hu, Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Jensen, O. C.
Right arrow Articles by Hu, Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

Working conditions in international seafaring

Olaf C. Jensen 1 *, Jens F. L. Sørensen 1, Michelle Thomas 2, M. Luisa Canals 3, Nebojsa Nikolic 4, and Yunping Hu 5

1 Research Unit of Maritime Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Østergade 81-83, DK-6700 Esbjerg, Denmark
2 Seafarers International Research Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
3 Instituto Social de la Marina, Sociedad Española de Medicina Marítima, Tarragona, Spain
4 Croatian Institute of Occupational Health, University of Rijeka, Verdieva 8, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
5 Department of Occupational Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Olaf C. Jensen, E-mail: OCJ{at}FMM.SDU.dk


  Abstract

Background Seafaring is a global profession and seafarers have their second home on board and live there for several months at a time.

Aim To assess self-rated health status and the main characteristics of seafarers' working conditions.

Methods Questionnaire study concerning the most recent tour of duty.

Results A total of 6461 seafarers in 11 countries responded. In general, the seafarers' self-rated health was good, but it declined significantly with age. Seafarers from South-East Asian countries spent longer time periods at sea, and had lower numbers of officers and older seafarers than found among seafarers from western countries. Most seafarers worked every day of the week, and on average for 67-70 h a week during periods of 2.5-8.5 months at sea.

Conclusions Seafarers' self-rated health was generally good but varied significantly by country. Working conditions also differed by country but did not reflect working conditions in general. Further studies are necessary to describe more closely the influence of work schedules on the health and social life of seafarers.

Keywords: Occupational; seafarer; self-rated health; working condition.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.