Diagnosis of stress and fatigue in maritime work on board.?The case of Spanish seafarers?

Abstract

[Abstract] All seafarers wishing to work on a ship must undergo a medical examination prior to embarkation, ac-cording to the Maritime Labour Convention, (MLC,2006), and the Standards of Training, Certification,and Watchkeeping (STCW), in compliance with STCW Regulation I/9 and Section A-I/9. In Spain,this focuses mainly on physical tests of the individual and not so much on his or her mental health.This paper shows the results of a survey on ”stress and fatigue in maritime shipboard work”. Despitehaving suffered from both stress and fatigue in the last campaign on board, 49.79% of the respondentsacknowledge that they have never been diagnosed with stress, and 52.04% reveal that they have not beendiagnosed with fatigue. On the other hand, 55.50% of the participants in this consultation consider itnecessary to diagnose stress in the medical examination and 61.40% believe that tests relating to the di-agnosis of fatigue are necessary in these examinations. In view of these data, the competent authorities,as well as the different contracting companies, are urged to promote both prevention and mitigationof the possible consequences of suffering from both stress and fatigue in order to avoid unintendedconsequences such as maritime accidents.