Peculiarities of addictive realization and psychosocial stress in the representatives of the working personnel of the merchant and passenger-carrying fleets

Abstract

Annotation. The purpose of the work is to study the peculiarities of addictive realization and psychosocial stress in the representatives of the working personnel of the merchant and passenger-carrying fleets, in order to determine the need to create systemic measures for the given contingent to protect their mental health. In compliance with the principles of bioethics and deontology, 120 workers of the Ukrainian fleet were surveyed in 2016–2019: 90 sailors, motormen and other workers of the merchant fleet and 30 workers of the passenger-carrying fleet. All surveyed were male, citizens of Ukraine. The study included the use of clinical, psychopathological and psychodiagnostic methods. Statistical-mathematical analysis included the formation of descriptive statistics and analysis of discrepancies using nonparametric methods. The results of the study have established that the share of workers of the merchant fleet and workers of the passenger-carrying fleet has an increased severity of addictive realization, the average indicators of which are within the “harmful consumption” of chemical origin (alcohol, tobacco, coffee/tea) and non-chemical origin (the Internet, computer and gambling, watching TV, sports, eating, shopping). The general tendency inherent in the workers of the merchant and passenger-carrying fleets is an increase in the severity of addictive seizure of objects of both chemical and non-chemical origin, with an increase in the level of psychosocial stress experienced by the examined people from “safe consumption” in people with low levels of stress to “dangerous consumption” or “addiction” in people with severe stress. Workers are characterized by a greater severity of addictive realization of all addictive objects, compared to merchant fleet workers, both on average in the sample and in each stress load range. Thus, the level of psychosocial stress can be considered as a trigger and a marker of the severity of addictive realization in the workers of the merchant and passenger-carrying fleets. The identified patterns should be considered when developing specific measures of psychotherapy and psychoprophylaxis for this contingent, which is the perspective of this study.