Wood Rachel E, Pachana Nancy A
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Gerontologist. 2025 May 10;65(6). doi: 10.1093/geront/gnaf076.
The retirement transition is a period of major change and instability, which may challenge a person's sense of meaning in life. This scoping review sought to characterize the current research on the role of meaning in the retirement transition.
This scoping review was conducted according to Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and PRISMA reporting guidelines. Database searches of Scopus, PubMed, PsycINFO, Social Science Database, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global yielded 738 records (after duplicates removed). Accessory searches yielded an additional 286 records. Eligible articles included peer-reviewed literature and theses (qualitative and quantitative) that explored an aspect of meaning in the context of the retirement transition.
A total of 30 studies (21 qualitative and 9 quantitative) were included. These studies examined a broad range of research questions on different aspects of meaning-meaning in life, meaning-making, meaningful engagement, and meaning of retirement. Most were single, stand-alone studies (not part of a broader research program) that included only a single time point. Only 6 studies were longitudinal.
This review revealed a heterogeneous set of studies and identified gaps in reporting of important participant characteristics, lack of conceptual clarity in defining meaning, and few longitudinal studies. There is a need for more theoretically driven, programs of research that include longitudinal designs, ideally using mixed-methods approaches, to build a richer understanding of the role of meaning during this major life transition.
退休转型是一个经历重大变化和不稳定的时期，这可能会挑战一个人的生活意义感。本综述旨在描述当前关于意义在退休转型中作用的研究。
本综述依据乔安娜·布里格斯研究所（JBI）和系统评价与Meta分析扩展版（PRISMA）报告指南进行。对Scopus、PubMed、PsycINFO、社会科学数据库以及ProQuest全球学位论文数据库进行检索，共得到738条记录（去除重复记录后）。辅助检索又得到286条记录。符合条件的文章包括探讨退休转型背景下意义某一方面的同行评议文献和论文（定性和定量）。
共纳入30项研究（21项定性研究和9项定量研究）。这些研究考察了关于意义不同方面的广泛研究问题——生活意义、意义建构、有意义的参与以及退休的意义。大多数是单一的独立研究（并非更广泛研究项目的一部分），且仅包含一个时间点。只有6项研究是纵向研究。
本综述揭示了一系列异质性研究，并发现了重要参与者特征报告方面的差距、意义定义缺乏概念清晰度以及纵向研究较少的问题。需要开展更多理论驱动的研究项目，包括纵向设计，理想情况下采用混合方法，以更深入地理解意义在这一重要人生转型过程中的作用。
