A qualitative study on physical health threatening factors of Iranian seafarers working on ocean going tankers

Abstract

Background: Seafaring is a highly physically demanding profession in a risky environment due to exposure to unique job health related risk factors. The purpose of the study is to describe physical health threatening factors of Iranian seafarers working on tankers. Materials and methods: A qualitative content analysis with inductive approach was performed on 17 Iranian male seafarers in 2016. Subjects were selected by purposive sampling, which continued until data saturation. Data were gathered using semi-structural questionnaire via in-depth-interviews. All interviews were transformed into computer files. Analysis was done based on conventional content analysis approach. Results: Mean job history and age of the participants was 11.9 ± 7.2 and 35.8 ± 9.3 years, respectively. Two main themes emerged during analysis of data and categories were created. The themes are (1) physical health threatening factors at the ship; (2) high risk ranks at the ship. Conclusions: The need for addressing nutrition at sea was acknowledged by seafarers. Also, it seems that revision of some regulations regarding seafarers' medical examination, oral health and heart diseases is necessary.

Global overview of dietary outcomes and dietary intake assessment methods in maritime settings: a systematic review

“…In terms of study design, the majority of the studies (12) were cross-sectional [ 10 , 27 – 30 , 32 , 34 , 36 , 40 , 44 , 45 , 48 ], whereas 3 of them were designed as qualitative [ 39 , 43 , 47 ], three studies as pre-and post/interventional [ 8 , 38 , 42 ], one reported retrospective design with existing data [ 46 ] and 7 studies did not report the study design [ 6 , 26 , 31 , 33 , 35 , 37 , 41 ]. At least two studies applied mixed methodology which probably was presented in separate articles [ 8 , 38 – 40 ].…”

“…There have been very few studies of assessing the relationship between diet and non-communicable diseases at sea [3,39,40]. In such studies, only one or two tools has been used to evaluate the dietary intake of the participants [39].…”

“…Of included studies -in the period of 1970 to 2019-the US researchers conducted the most studies [26][27][28][29][30][31]. Other countries according to the number of studies were as follow: UK [32][33][34][35], Germany [10,36,37], Denmark [8,38], Iran [39,40], India [41,42], China [43], Croatia [44], Italy [45], Brazil [46], Philippines [47], Lithuania [48], and Poland [6]. However, it appears that some of these studies from Germany [10,36,37], Denmark [8,38], Iran [39,40] and the US [27,29] are sub-projects conducted within the framework of a larger and more comprehensive program.…”

“…However, most of the studies sampled all available subjects through recruiting/ voluntarily [10,27,29,32,38,[42][43][44]. Three studies applied random sampling [28,31] or cluster random sampling [40]; Whereas two studies used purposive sampling because of their qualitative nature [39,47].…”

“…Qualitative tools and outcomes Qualitative data in the reviewed articles were collected by using the following tools: in depth individual/group interviews [8,10,36,37,39,47], participant observations [8], and phone-based chats [43].…”