Communication practices of overseas Filipino seafarers with their adolescent children: Determinants and association with the quality of father-child relationship

• Main Author: Valencia, Christine Mae T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Father and child; Sailors > Philippines
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5664
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study described the communication practices of 108 overseas Filipino seafarers with their left-behind adolescent children. It also examined the association of their communication practices with their personal characteristics, work-related characteristics, perceived roles as a father, and the quality of their father-child relationship. A survey was performed with the use of a self-administered questionnaire to gather data. The median age of the respondents was 39. The results of the study showed that the overall communication practices of the overseas seafarers were good. Educational attainment was found to have a significant relationship with duration of communication. Number of children had a significant association with content of communication. The work-related characteristics examined, rank and usual length of stay on board, were found to have no significant relationship with communication practices. Perceived roles as fathers had a significant association with channel of communication. Digging into the domains of communication practices showed that channel of communication had a positive correlation only with their perceived openness, while duration of communication had no significant correlation with the domains of perceived quality of father child relationship. Meanwhile, overall content of communication was shown to be significantly linked with perceived openness and expression of affection. The findings revealed that content of communication had a significant association with overall perceived quality of father-child relationship. Overall communication practices were also found to have a significant correlation with perceived quality of father-child relationship. Lastly, the findings revealed that overall communication practices were not significantly associated with overall perceived quality of father-child relationship.