[About the turning point in a nurse's life when giving up the profession. A qualitative-empirical study on the willingness to continue to work and on the conditions for continuing to work in the post-professional phase of life].

Due to the increasing life expectancy and population ageing, the post-professional phase of life is becoming more and more important to the individual and to society as a whole. The perception of the potentials of elderly people and, hence, the call for self-directed and independent activities in the post-professional phase are becoming more intense. The relation between retirement and work in nurses has not been of scientific importance so far. This is primarily due to the assumption that nurses cannot or do not stay in their profession until retirement. However, nurses do manage to pursue their profession continuously and permanently until they reach the age of retirement. The aim of this qualitative research study is to investigate the post-professional phase of life of former nurses within the context of the profession pursued. The guiding research questions in this regard were: How do former nurses spend their retirement period? How do nurses use their nursing-related abilities and experiences in their postprofessional phase of life? What do nurses associate with their former profession in the post-professional phase of life? In one-to-one interviews, these questions were posed to eight retired nurses who had pursued their profession for many years. The assessment instruments used were a socio-demographic questionnaire, a guideline and a record from memory. All data were summarized and evaluated analytically with regard to their content according to Mayring (2008). The present article shows the partial results of the study on retirement and work in the post-professional life of nurses. The results indicate that the transition to retirement is often accompanied by problems, that retired nurses do not fundamentally refuse to continue to work and that the willingness to continue to work is subject to certain conditions. Reasons and conditions for and against profession-based post-professional activities were revealed. Consequentially, concepts for the systematic identification of potentials of nurses in their post-professional phase of life should be developed.