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Occupational Medicine Advance Access published online on February 29, 2008
Occupational Medicine, doi:10.1093/occmed/kqn008
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Fatigue and health in a seafaring population

Emma J. K. Wadsworth, Paul H. Allen, Rachel L. McNamara and Andrew P. Smith

Centre for Occupational and Health Psychology, Cardiff University, UK

Background: Occupational fatigue is relatively common within the general population and has been linked to reduced performance, injury and longer term ill-health. Despite growing acknowledgement of this problem in the maritime sector, little research has been conducted into the risk factors, prevalence and consequences of seafarers' fatigue.

Aims: To examine the prevalence of fatigue among seafarers, identify potential risk factors and assess possible links with poor performance and ill-health.

Methods: Cross-sectional questionnaire survey of seafarers working in the offshore oil support, short-sea and deep-sea shipping industries. A number of tools were used including the fatigue subscale of the profile of fatigue-related symptoms, the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire and the SF36 General Health scale.

Results: In all, 1855 questionnaires were completed giving an overall response rate of 20%. Fatigue symptoms were associated with a range of occupational and environmental factors, many unique to seafaring. Reporting a greater number of risk factors was associated with greater fatigue [e.g. OR = 2.53 (1.90–3.35) for those with three or four risk factors and OR = 9.54 (6.95–13.09) for those with five or more risk factors]. There was also a strong link between fatigue and poorer cognitive and health outcomes, with fatigue the most important of a number of risk factors, accounting for 10–14% of the variance.

Conclusions: Seafarers' fatigue could impact on safety within the industry and may be linked to longer term individual ill-health. It can only be addressed by considering how multiple factors combine to contribute to fatigue.

Keywords      Fatigue; seafarers; shipping; sleep; tiredness; work

Correspondence to: Emma J. K. Wadsworth, Centre for Occupational and Health Psychology, Cardiff University, 63 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AS, UK. e-mail: wadsworthej{at}cardiff.ac.uk


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