How SOL-X Improves Seafarer Mental Health and Well-being
The unique challenges faced by seafarers, including long periods away from home, isolation, demanding work schedules, and the inherent risks of maritime work, contribute to the potential for mental health issues.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these challenges by adding uncertainties, disruptions, and concerns about health and safety. The designation of seafarers as essential workers during the pandemic has highlighted the importance of addressing their mental health needs.
Several factors contribute to the mental health challenges in the maritime industry
Mental: Seafarers can feel uncertainty, disorientation, anxiety, invasive thoughts and images and self-blame.
Emotional: They can face Emotional numbness, guilt, shame, terror, rage, fear, sorrow, grief, and irritation onboard.
Physical: Tiredness Headache Muscle tension Stomach pain Excessive heart rate Panic attacks Falling or staying asleep and difficulty concentrating can affect the operations onboard.
Behavioural: Disengagement, and separation from others, conflict with others, refraining from speaking, thinking, or feeling about the traumatic event, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, suddenness or nervousness are the behavioural effects of stressors.
It is imperative to develop a comprehensive strategy to address the mental health of seafarers that involves employers, industry stakeholders, and seafarers themselves. Maritime groups, shipowners, and regulatory agencies are working to enhance living conditions on board, offer sufficient medical facilities, and guarantee that seafarers have access to mental health care as part of their efforts to address seafarer wellness.
Several technologies that offer resources, connectivity, and monitoring can be used to support the mental health of seafarers. They can be monitored in the areas of physical health, active time, heart rate and stress levels by wearing devices such as smartwatches. In the context of monitoring and managing their well-being, these data can be valuable.
One such solution is Magellan X’s SOL-X. It is a connected worker platform that improves safety operations by anticipating incidents and improving compliance workflows. This solution is compatible with major connectivity protocols such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Long-Range Bluetooth.
Few solutions to address seafarers’ mental health and how SOL-X helps.
To address these challenges, the maritime industry has been taking steps to prioritise mental health and SOL-X is playing an important role.
Rest time – Work Rest hours monitoring
Seafarers work long hours onboard leads to high fatigue which is the main cause of mental issues. Also, almost all psycho-physical skills, such as strength, speed, agility, coordination, decision-making, and/or emotional equilibrium, may be negatively impacted. Due to the amount of activity involved in working on merchant ships, fatigue appears to be inevitable. SOL-X SmartWatch allows seafarers to track their work and rest hours. By efficiently managing working hours and workloads there is a lower risk of worker fatigue.
Extreme heat stress
Extreme heat is linked to elevated levels of irritation, depressive symptoms, and suicide rates. It may also have an impact on behaviour, leading to an increase in hostility. Also, elevated body temperature has been linked to issues related to memory, focus, and response. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures during sleep might aggravate and worsen symptoms related to mental health.
The SOL-X SmartWatch measures the ambient temperature and humidity of the individual’s surrounding area and assesses potential heal-related risks. Seafarers onboard can stay alert and take precautions for their mental health.
Fitness monitoring
Physical activity plays an important role in improving mental health and overall well-being. Regular physical activity has been proven to have a variety of positive effects on mood, mental health, and brain function. It also gives the body a natural way to react to and overcome stress. Moreover, reaching fitness objectives and getting regular exercise may boost confidence and self-worth. Achievements in the physical realm support a healthy self-image. The SOL-X SmartWatch activity tracker feature helps in monitoring daily step goals based on industry standards and promotes healthy living among seafarers onboard.
Seafarers Happiness Index
In recent years there has been an increase in seafarer mental health awareness. This led to the development of several guidelines and policies to mitigate the issues seafarers are facing onboard and to promote overall well-being. The Mission to Seafarers conducts a quarterly survey called the Seafarer Happiness Index (SHI) to determine how those who work at sea are feeling. It contains questions to the seafarer on various aspects of their lives onboard like work-life balance, support from the crew and physical and mental well-being. The result of the survey helps key decision-makers and stakeholders in the Maritime industry to analyse the issues and areas of improvement. Having a data-driven worker safety solution can help to arrive at a more accurate Happiness index result and address the challenges in the seafarer’s health and well-being.
Apart from using technology to improve seafarer well-being, maritime businesses can adopt steps like improved social interaction and adequate mental health awareness. They are vital to the overall well-being of seafarers. With the cross-culture and social barriers, seafarers should engage themselves in social activities onboard. By spending time with others or seeking support from others through conversations, seafarers can overcome the effects of isolation. Training sessions and workshops on mental health awareness to the seafarers could help shed light on the importance of mental issues and the significant need to address those.
