General mental health of seafarers’ partners: Testing the role of personal resources and human-resource practices

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The dual life of seafarers and their families is recognized as a unique life which may bring various sources of stress for seafarers’ partners.

OBJECTIVE:

The study focuses on the explanation of the mental health of seafarers’ partners, by testing the role of different individual characteristics, and the organizational characteristics of their partners’ job.

METHODS:

The sample consisted of 539 women who declared themselves as seafarers’ partners (age range: 18–60 years). The on-line survey consisted of questions, relating to demographic characteristics of the participants and characteristics of their partners’ jobs, and a set of scales measuring general mental health, relationship satisfaction, stress coping strategies, perceived social support, and resilience.

RESULTS:

The results showed that, after controlling for demographic characteristics, significant contributions in the explanation of the mental health of seafarers’ partners are made by the following measures: resilience, relationship satisfaction, perceived social support, and use of stress coping strategies (a lower level of dysfunctional coping strategies, and a higher level of emotion-focused strategies). In addition, a favourable ratio between working and non-working days on the part of their seafaring partners contributed to the explanation of their general mental health.

CONCLUSIONS:

The results obtained confirmed the role of personal resources and human-resource practices in the explanation of the mental health of seafarers’ partners.