Abstract

Introduction: Retirement is a new phase in the life cycle and away to improve health and self-care and living conditions. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of retired nurses in retirement time.

Materials and Methods: This study was performed by qualitative design and content analysis method. Sampling was based on purposive and participants were 20 retired nurses that live in Semnan. In addition, participants had a BSc in nursing and 1 to 5 years of retirement time.  However, they had different positions in various wards and hospitals with 23-30 years’ of full-time experience. Data was collected through semi- structured interviews and the sampling ended when the data reached saturation.

Findings: The main theme extracted from the data analysis was to identity the threat. Classes include "shock and disbelief", "hard separation of the work" and "frustration” that contained several sub-classes.

Conclusion: The experience of retired nurses during the retirement was identity threat. Suitable retirement planning and effective interventions to improve existing conditions by authorities and managers of nursing, can prevent incidence of identity threat in retired nurses and provide health promotion and efficiency for nurses. Furthermore, findings of this study can provide and facilitate more future studies in this field.

 Keywords: Retirement, Retired nurse, Qualitative study, Content analysis.