Career firefighters’ transition into retirement: Issues, challenges and support program design. Phase II: Mixed methods study

The aim of the current study was to investigate the psychological, cognitive (i.e. identity) and emotional issues, psychosocial factors and challenges faced by retiring firefighters. The study follows a Phase I literature review, which emphasized the need for organisational interventions to ensure a healthy and successful transition to retirement among career firefighters. The findings of the current study strongly indicate that retiring firefighters face major challenges and issues in different life domains (i.e., health, relationships, finance and psychological) and they are ill-prepared for retirement transition. Specifically, I find that pre-retirees have overoptimistic and unrealistic expectations about their life in retirement, hence they invest little effort and thought in retirement planning and preparation. These issues are especially aggravated for those firefighters who retire unexpectedly, due to medical reasons.