Peculiarities of psychosocial stress and anxiety-depressive response in representatives of the command staff and workers of merchant and passenger-carrying fleets

Abstract

300 sailors of long-distance voyages were surveyed, including 200 merchant fl eet representatives (110 crew members and 90 sailors) and 100 workers of passenger-carrying fleet of Ukraine (70 crew members and 30 sailors). The study involved the use of clinical-psychopathological and psychodiagnostic methods. Indicated that 63.0 % of sailors of long-distance voyages, including 69.1 % of command staff representatives and 58.9 % of workers of merchant fleet, and 57.1 % of command staff and 66.7 % of workers of passenger-carrying fleet, have signs of mental maladaptation, which in most cases do not reach clinically defined severity. 18 % of the examined sailors of long-distance voyages, including representatives of all surveyed groups, were diagnosed with clinically delineated adaptation disorders, namely, mixed anxiety-depression, prolonged depressive reaction, disorder with predominance of disturbance of other emotions, as well as disorders of emotions and behavior. The distribution of stress load and pathological anxiety-depressive response in the command staff and workers of long-distance voyages is heterogeneous and associated with the specificity of professional activity. The synchronicity of dynamics of the growth of indicators of level of stress and deterioration of mental health condition of the examined up to clinically defined adaptation disorders, allow to reach the conclusion about the signifi cant role of psychosocial and psychological stress in the formation of mental health disorders in sailors of long-distance voyages that should be taken into account in the development of specifi c measures of psychotherapy and psychoprophylaxis for this contingent. Keywords: sailors of long-distance voyages, merchant fleet, passenger-carrying fleet, command staff, working staff, psychosocial stress, mental maladaptation, pathological anxiety, depression, adaptation disorders