Differential weekly effects of a resource-oriented retirement preparation program on retirement anxiety and retirement concepts

Abstract Retirement is a major life transition, including substantial changes that require adaptation and (re)organization to adjust to the new situation. To support retirees-to-be in this process, we designed and evaluated a resource-oriented group-coaching program for older employees to prepare for retirement transition and beyond. Aim of this study was to test the weekly intervention effects on retirement anxiety and individual retirement concepts with a longitudinal waitlist control group design ( N = 54) applying weekly short questionnaires over a period of six weeks including n = 585 measurement points. We furthermore assessed the mediating role of state hope to gain knowledge about underlying mechanisms of intervention effects. Initially, multi-level analyses showed no positive intervention effects on participants’ retirement anxiety and retirement concepts. Differential analyses showed significant intervention effects for subsamples of retirees-to-be with initially higher levels of retirement anxiety and lower levels of retirement concepts, however, indicating that these participants benefitted from the intervention. The proposed mediation effect could not be supported, however. Overall, the results indicate that the intervention is an effective mean to reduce retirement anxiety and promote retirement concepts for retirees-to-be with initially high levels of retirement anxiety or low levels of retirement concepts.