Fatigue in seafarers working in the offshore oil and gas re-supply industry: effects of safety climate, psychosocial work environment and shift arrangement

Abstract

This study examined the influence of safety climate and psychosocial work environment on the reportedfatigue of seafarers working in the offshore oil and gas re-supply industry (n = 402). We found that seafarerswho reported high psychological demands and perceived the organisational-level safety climate negatively,reported significantly more mental fatigue, physical fatigue, and lack of energy. In addition, seafarers whoreported having high levels of job control reported being significantly less mentally fatigued. We also foundsome combined effects of safety climate and shift arrangement. Organisational-level safety climate did notinfluence the levels of physical fatigue in seafarers working on the night shift. On the contrary, seafarersworking during the days reported to be more physically fatigued when they perceived the organisational-levelclimate to be negative compared with the positive. The opposite effect was found for group-level safetyclimate: seafarers working during the nights reported to be more physically fatigued when they perceivedthe group-level climate to be negative compared with the positive. The results from this study point to theimportance of taking into consideration aspects of the psychosocial work environment and safety climate,and their potential impact on fatigue and safety in the maritime organisations.