MENTAL HEALTH IN OFFSHORE WORK: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS, ISOLATION AND PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS FROM A PHENOMENOLOGICAL-EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This integrative review analyzed relationships between mental health, occupational stress, and psychosocial factors in offshore work and discussed implications for psychology from a phenomenological-existential perspective. PubMed and SciELO were searched, keeping historical searches separate from the update conducted on October 6, 2026. The synthesis included 26 publications whose full texts were accessed and checked; no formal methodological quality appraisal was performed. The studies linked psychological distress to job demands, role conflicts, and risk perception, and reported associations with leadership, social support, sleep, fatigue, and work–family interference. Differences in populations, study designs, and measures limit comparison of findings and preclude broad causal inferences. The phenomenological-existential perspective served as an interpretive framework for relating temporality, human relationships, and concrete conditions of existence, without attributing to the included studies experiences they did not directly investigate. The review concludes that promoting mental health requires combining individual care with attention to psychosocial and organizational working conditions.