Background: The older adult population is growing in many countries worldwide. Older men have high rates of suicide in their post-retirement years, necessitating research investigating mental health promotion and suicide prevention in the peri-retirement period.
Methods: Secondary analyses were conducted of pre-group data from 83 participants in a study of Meaning-Centered Men’s Groups (MCMG; Heisel et al, 2020), an upstream community-based psychological intervention group for men over 55 facing the transition to retirement. Eligible participants met with investigators in an academic health sciences centre and completed measures of retirement satisfaction (RS), suicide ideation, and positive (e.g., psychological well-being, perceived social support, and life satisfaction) and negative psychological factors (e.g., depression, hopelessness, loneliness, and anxiety) prior to the start of a 12-week course of MCMG. Associations were investigated among measures of retirement satisfaction and the positive and negative psychological factors. RS was predicted to be positively associated with the psychological well-being variables, and negatively associated with psychological risk factors. We specifically predicted that RS would be negatively associated with suicide ideation, and that this association would be mediated by depressive symptom severity.
Results: Measures of global RS were significantly correlated with one another and with measures of positive and negative psychological factors in the expected direction. Retirement dissatisfaction was significantly associated with suicide ideation (Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale or GSIS), and particularly so with items assessing a perceived Loss of Personal and Social Worth. The association between RS and suicide ideation was significantly mediated by depressive symptom severity (Geriatric Depression Scale).
Conclusions: Retirement satisfaction is closely associated with self-reported mental health and well-being variables among middle-aged and older men facing the transition to retirement. Severe dissatisfaction with retirement may be a suicide risk indicator, necessitating investigation and potential intervention. These and other findings will be discussed in the context of the importance of meaningful engagement in one’s post-employment years.