Precipitating and expectations of retirement from the perspective of newly retired

Abstract

Background: REATIVA project, funded by FCT, aims to build a health intervention program that promotes self-efficacy, self-esteem and family resilience in the transition process which is retirement. The first stage of this project aims to understand how the newly retired Portuguese perceive this transition. Objectives: Understand the expectations of the participants on the experience of retirement and the precipitants of this transition. Methodology: Qualitative and descriptive-exploratory study, based on 16 focus group whose participants fitted in to functional health units of ACES belonging to Regional Health Centre of Portugal and were retired for 5 years or less. The ethical and formal procedures inherent in research were respected and a content analysis using QRS International NVivo10® program was held. Results: The newly retired wish to describe the time before retirement to make sense of the present moment. They reported that before retirement, they created expectations about it, as idealizations of well-being and projects to finish. As precipitants of retirement, participants pointed the absence of health, the pursuit of personal and family benefits and the imminence of an unwanted unemployment. We note, too, that some of the retirees refer to the period between the application of the reform and its implementation as a moment of introspection, in preparation for the new life phase, comparable to the psychosocial moratorium, of Erikson (1979). Conclusions: Retirement is a transition desired by many, is precipitated by several factors and it is seen as the possibility of achieving activities not possible during working life. We will continue to study this transition phase to know how they materialize the created expectations.