Training seafarers to deal with multicultural crew members and stress on board

The present study describes the intercultural differences in the perception of stress and the preparation of seafarers.

Three hundred twenty-three seafarers (156 [48.3%] Europeans and 167 [51.7%] Southeast Asians) were interviewed about their subjective stress on board.

According to the interviews with ship's officers, mostly represented by Europeans, mental stress was most often due to high responsibilities (82.0%), extensive administrative tasks (81.1%) and lack of qualification of seafarers (64.8%). Subjectively, the Europeans questioned were significantly more likely to experience mental stress on board than the Southeast Asians (74.2% vs. 56.3%), whereas the latter were more prone to being physically stressed. 43.1% of the Southeast Asian seafarers often felt lonely on board compared with 26.2% of the Europeans. Preparation for maritime-specific stress in the form of specific training units is only provided in 1 of the 5 universities surveyed. The most important reason for this is a lack of time. Intercultural leadership training was also only offered at one university.

In view of the many psychophysical stressors in daily life on a ship and the lacking respective education, it is recommended to integrate stress management and diversity training in intercultural communication in the higher education of future superiors on board.