Abstract
Stress is one of the main determinants of health and can cause several chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, depression or obesity. The aim of the presented study was the determination of stress of retirees (RG) and the differences in comparison to older employees (OEG). A questionnaire consisting of different validated instruments was completed by 243 adults aged over 50 years. We collected data about stressors, symptoms and coping strategies in older adults and investigated factors influencing stress in older adults. Retired adults are stressed on a medium level and mostly due to health issues. There are many socio-demographic factors (e.g., education), as well as health (e.g. number of chronic diseases) and social aspects (e.g., voluntary work), influencing the stress level of retirees. We found hardly any differences in stress levels, symptoms and coping strategies between the two groups. However, the number of reported stressors was significantly higher in the OEG than in the RG. The finding that stress declined with retirement cannot be confirmed by the presented study. Although the number of stressors declined, the stress level is consistent.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldwin, C. M., Sutton, K. J., Chiara, G., & Spiro, A. (1996). Age differences in stress, coping, and appraisal: findings from the normative aging study. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 51B(4), P179–P188. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/51B.4.P179.
American Psychological Association. (2010). Stress in america. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2010/national-report.pdf
Bosch, K. (2003). Common Stressors for Aging Adults. University of Nebraska Lincoln. Retrieved from digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=extensionhist.
Bradley, D. B. (2000). A reason to rise each morning: the meaning of volunteering in the lives of older adults. Generations, 3(4), 45–50.
Carver, C. S. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol’s too long: consider the brief COPE. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4(1), 92–100. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327558ijbm0401_6.
Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2), 267–283.
Cohen, S., & Wiliamson, G. M. (1988). Perceived Stress in a Probability Sample of the United States. In S. Spacapan & S. Oskamp (Eds.), The social psychology of health. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385–396.
de Anda, D., Bradley, M., Collada, C., Dunn, L., Kubota, J., Hollister, V., et al. (1997). A study of stress, stressors, and coping strategies among middle school adolescents. Children and Schools, 19(2), 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/19.2.87.
de Anda, D., Baroni, S., Boskin, L., Buchwald, L., Morgan, J., Ow, J., et al. (2000). Stress, stressors and coping among high school students. Children and Youth Services Review, 22(6), 441–463.
DeLongis, A., Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1988). The impact of daily stress on health and mood: psychological and social resources as mediators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(3), 486–495.
Djuric, Z., Bird, C. E., Furumoto-Dawson, A., Rauscher, G. H., Ruffin IV, M. T., Stowe, R. P., et al. (2008). Biomarkers of psychological stress in health disparities research. The Open Biomarkers Journal, 1(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.2174/1875318300801010007.
Dyrbye, L. N., Power, D. V., Massie, F. S., Eacker, A., Harper, W., Thomas, M. R., et al. (2010). Factors associated with resilience to and recovery from burnout: a prospective, multi-institutional study of US medical students. Medical Education, 44(10), 1016–1026. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03754.x.
Erlinghagen, M., & Hank, K. (2006). The participation of older Europeans in volunteer work. Ageing and Society, 26(04), 567–584. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X06004818.
Hahn, E. A., Cichy, K. E., Small, B. J., & Almeida, D. M. (2014). Daily emotional and physical reactivity to stressors among widowed and married older adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 69B(1), 19–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbt035.
Innes, S. I. (2017). The relationship between levels of resilience and coping styles in chiropractic students and perceived levels of stress and well-being. The Journal of Chiropractic Education, 31(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.7899/JCE-16-2.
Kalra, G., Pinto, C., & Subramanyam, A. (2011). Sexuality: desire, activity and intimacy in the elderly. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 53(4), 300. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.91902.
Klein, E. M., Brähler, E., Dreier, M., Reinecke, L., Müller, K. W., Schmutzer, G., et al. (2016). The German version of the Perceived Stress Scale – psychometric characteristics in a representative German community sample. BMC Psychiatry, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-0875-9.
Koenig, H. G., George, L. K., & Siegler, I. C. (1988). The use of religion and other emotion-regulating coping strategies among older adults. The Gerontologist, 28(3), 303–310. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/28.3.303.
Lange, C., & Koch-Institut, R. (Eds.). (2012). Daten und Fakten: Ergebnisse der Studie “Gesundheit in Deutschland aktuell 2010.”. Berlin: Robert-Koch-Inst.
Leppert, K., Koch, B., Brähler, E., & Strauß, B. (2008). Die Resilienzskala (RS) - Überprüfung der Langform RS-25 und einer Kurzform RS-13. Klinische Diagnostik Und Evaluation, 1(2), 226–243.
Lindau, S. T., Schumm, L. P., Laumann, E. O., Levinson, W., O’Muircheartaigh, C. A., & Waite, L. J. (2007). A study of sexuality and health among older adults in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 357(8), 762–774. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa067423.
MacLeod, S., Musich, S., Hawkins, K., Alsgaard, K., & Wicker, E. R. (2016). The impact of resilience among older adults. Geriatric Nursing, 37(4), 266–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2016.02.014.
Moos, R. H., Brennan, P. L., Schutte, K. K., & Moos, B. S. (2006). Older adults` coping with negative life events: common processes of managing health, interpersonal, and finacial/work stressors. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 62(1), 39–59.
Patzelt, A. (2014). Resilienz und Stressmanagement. Eine empirische Untersuchung des Einflussfaktors Resilienz auf die Stressbewältigung am Arbeitsplatz. Riedlingen: SRH FernHochschule Riedlingen Retrieved from http://www.drsatow.de/tests/2015_Resilienz_und_Stressmanagement_Patzelt.pdf.
Paykel, E. S. (1983). Methodological aspects of life events research. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 27(5), 341–352.
Rodin, J. (1986). Aging and health: effects of the sense of control. Science (New York, N.Y.), 233(4770), 1271–1276.
Satow, L. (2012). Stress- und Coping-Invenatr (SCI): Test- und Skalendokumentation. Retrieved from http://www.drsatow.de
Society of Actuaries. (2017). Post-Retirement Risks and Related Decisions. Retrieved from https://www.soa.org/research-reports/2017/post-retirement-needs-decisions/
Statistisches Bundesamt. (2016). Ältere Menschen in Deutschland und der EU. Wiesbaden. Retrieved from https://www.bmfsfj.de/blob/93214/95d5fc19e3791f90f8d582d61b13a95e/aeltere-menschen-deutschland-eu-data.pdf
Thomas, M. L., Kaufmann, C. N., Palmer, B. W., Depp, C. A., Martin, A. S., Glorioso, D. K., et al. (2016). Paradoxical trend for improvement in mental health with aging: a community-based study of 1,546 adults aged 21–100 years. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 77(8), e1019–e1025. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.16m10671.
Zeidner, M., & Endler, N. S. (Eds.). (1996). Handbook of coping: theory, research, applications. New York: Wiley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
Ethical Treatment of Experimental Subjects (Animal and Human)
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steinert, A., Haesner, M. Stress in Retired Adults – Stressors, Symptoms and Coping Strategies. Ageing Int 44, 129–140 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-018-9327-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-018-9327-9