A detailed look at fatigued fishermen

“This is not only the largest-ever field study carried out among fishermen; it also features more variables than any comparable study.”

This was one of the conclusions by the judging panel when Annbjørg Abrahamsen successfully defended her PhD thesis titled ‘Impact of work exposure on cognitive performance in Faroese deep-sea fishers: a field study’ on Friday.

In her study, Abrahamsen and her colleagues collected data on cognitive performance from 157 fishermen on 18 fishing trips, involving a total of 202 investigative days on board over a 15-month period in 2017-2018.

Increased risk of accidents

Common to all the fishing trips was that none of the ships used crew rotation systems. Many of the fishermen reported having experienced long workdays with significantly less sleep than what is recommended to maintain physical and mental well-being.

annbjørg abrahamsen

Caption: 

Annbjørg Abrahamsen successfully defended her PhD thesis about fishermen and fatigue on Friday

This may increase the risk of accidents and may also have negative effects on the fishermen’s physical and mental health.

Safety measures needed

The study found declining performance from the start to the end of the trip.

Fishermen performed significantly worse in the second half of some parted tests, and evening types seem less influenced by irregular work hours.

The findings call for improved safety for the vessels and their crew, says Abrahamsen.

Read more about the study here.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.