Table 3.

Evidence for the impact of retirement on various health outcomes from longitudinal studies on retirement and health

Outcome	Impact of retirement a		Best evidence synthesis b
	High quality studies	Low quality studies
Perceived health	0 23	0 25, 31, 32	Insufficient evidence
	+ 11, 17	+ 28
	- 35
	? 34	? 33
Mental health	+ 16, 23, 24, 26, 27, 36	+ 25, 31, 37, 38	Strong evidence
		0 28, 30, 31
Physical health
Somatic complaints	0 29		Insufficient evidence
Physical functioning	- 26, 27	0 38	Insufficient evidencec
Physical fatigue	+ 16	0 31	Insufficient evidence
Disability		? 41	Insufficient evidence
Chronic or (irreversible) illness	0 16	0 40	Insufficient evidence
	- 39	- 28
		+ 31
Perceived serious health problems	0 34		Insufficient evidence

^a? = unclear (including not shown to be statistically significant); 0 = no change; + = improvement; - = decline.

^bStrong evidence: consistent findings in multiple (≥ 2) high-quality studies; Moderate evidence: consistent findings in one high-quality study and at least one low-quality study, or consistent findings in multiple low-quality studies; Insufficient evidence: only one study available or inconsistent findings in multiple (≥ 2) studies. Consistency of results was determined following that for at least 75% of the studies reporting on a particular relation the results should be in the same direction, defined by p < 0.05 [20-22].

^cInsufficient evidence because both studies use data from the same study.