Psychological Adaptation Peculiarities of the Offshore Ice-Resistant Oil and Gas Production Platform Workers in the Caspian Sea

Abstract

The fly-in-fly-out personnel on the oil platform are exposed to extreme climatic and geographic and production factors, and also remain in group isolation conditions, which makes demands on the body of the fly-in-fly-out worker that often exceed its reserves. This excludes the possibility of full psychological adaptation to these conditions and causes the emergence of specialist's unfavorable functional states, which lead to a decrease in the mental health level, productivity and professional performance. The worker's labor tasks of various professions differ in physical and physiological stress, as well as in the degree of harmful production factors action. The goal is to identify the psychological adaptability of the offshore ice-resistant oil and gas production platform fly-in-fly-out employees in the Caspian Sea. The study was conducted on the offshore ice-resistant platform in the Caspian Sea (April 2019), 50 employees took part in it (fly-in duration - 14 days \ fly-out period – 14 days). Research methods are questionnaire, psychological and psychophysiological testing. By psychological adaptation we understand a personality traits system necessary for the productive performance of our leading activities. Due to the fact that fly-in-fly-out oil and gas workers are affected by climate, production and socio-psychological factors, we will study psychological adaptability through subjective criteria: indicators of regulatory processes, subjective control, socio-psychological adaptation, as well as personal characteristics, and objective criteria: functional state level (working capacity, job stress and other). The psychological adaptability peculiarities were revealed among employees with an optimal and reduced level of functional reserves and working capacity. The oil and gas production platform employees are distinguished by a high level of self-regulation, which is expressed in the ability to form a self-regulation style that allows them to compensate for the personal influence, characterological characteristics that impede the goal achievement. Among the regulatory processes, a high expression level is observed in planning and modeling. The employees have a need for conscious planning of activities, the plans in this case are realistic, detailed, hierarchical, effective and stable, the goals of the activity are put forward independently. They are able to identify significant conditions for achieving goals both in the current situation and in the long-term future, which is manifested in the adequacy of the action programs to the action plans, the results correspondence obtained to the adopted goals. Programming, evaluation of results, independence and flexibility are developed among employees at an average level. The workers are characterized by an average subjective control level. They believe that most of the important events in their life are the result of their own actions, that they can control them, and feel their own responsibility for these events and for the way their life in general develops. It should be noted that there is a negative relationship between the subjective control level and the functional reserves level of employees. With an increase in the subjective control level, the internal reserves decrease level. This can be explained by the fact that taking responsibility for life events requires more inclusion and resources. A high level of subjective control can lead to overexertion of employees. This is confirmed by the results of our previous studies.