Investigation of the psycho-social situations of seafarers working on ocean-going in the context of occupational social work: A grounded theory research

Occupational social work is a field of social work that focuses on the problems experienced by employees at their workplaces and aims to solve these problems. Seafarers working long distances, as employees with unique working conditions that differ from regular working conditions, are encountering many psycho-social problems on ships, which are their workplaces, and these problems are likely to continue outside the ship. This study examines the experiences of seafarers working on ocean-going routes to determine the difficulties they experience in their working environments and their coping resources in the context of occupational social work. In this study, grounded theory design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used. Within the scope of the research, the snowball sampling method was used to determine the participants and the theoretical sampling method was used to determine the number of participants. Participants of this study consisted of 20 seafarers, aged between 27 and 64, with different duties and titles and in-depth interviews were conducted with these seafarers. Unstructured and semi-structured questionnaires developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. The qualitative data analysis program named "MAXQDA" was used to analyze the data and the data analysis stages of the embedded pattern were followed. Categories were created by analyzing open, axial and selective data coding. As a result of the research, a core category named "Ocean-Going Seafaring Experience" emerged, which reveals the psycho-social processes of seafarers working on ocean-going. The main themes that form this core category are "setting off a long navigation", "long navigation process", "turning back to the land" and "expectations-requests", and the psycho-social processes of seafarers working on ocean-going are explained within this framework. The theme of "Setting off a Long Navigation" includes the categories of "emotional burden" and "exchanging your life with money"; the theme of "Long Navigation Process" includes the categories of "experiencing the adaptation problems in ships", "factors that make it difficult to work on the ship", "prison perception and deprivation", "psychological problems on the ship" and "factors that make it easier to cope with the problems on the ship"; the theme of "Turning back to the Land" includes the categories of "the seafarer's holiday is the moment when he returns to land", "a fish out of water", "family and social life", "economic attitude" and "adaptation to land"; The "Expectations-Requests" theme consists of the categories "company's care about the employee", "expectation of governmental intervention", "unions' supports of employee" and "coordinated work of maritime actors". The data obtained within the scope of this research, which examined the psycho-social situations of seafarers working on ocean-going, were discussed in the context of occupational social work and suggestions were developed. Keywords: Social Work, Occupational Social Work, Ocean-Going Seafaring, Psycho-Social Situtation, Grounded Theory.