Decline in Common Mental Disorder prevalence in men during the sixth decade of life. Evidence from the National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

Background: The impact of social transitions that might improve mental health, such as retirement, has attracted limited attention. Adverse occupational conditions and involuntary exit from work are linked to high rates of common mental disorders, but voluntary retirement is associated with improved mental health.

Aims: We aimed to estimate the prevalence of common mental disorders around the conventional retirement age and to identify the associated factors that might explain differences in rates.

Methods: Data were from the Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of Great Britain (2000), covering a sample of 8,580 respondents aged 16-74 years. Current common mental (neurotic) disorder presence was based on the revised Clinical Interview Schedule.

Results: Prevalence rates for having any common mental disorder in men aged 65-69 years (5%; 95% CI: 2.7-7.3) were dramatically lower than in the agegroup 60-64 years (14.5%; 95 % CI: 10.6-18.5). This pattern applied to individual disorders and to the prevalence of very high symptoms counts. Prevalence rates in women peaked at age 50 and declined thereafter, but no large changes in prevalence are evident around age 60 or 65 years. In men leaving work early (aged 50-64 years), prevalence of common mental disorders remains high until the conventional retirement age. There is little change in exposure to other studied risk factors capable of explaining prevalence reduction, with the exception of decreased economic hardship in the older group.

Conclusion: In the general population aged 50-74 years,there is a dramatic improvement in mental health in men after the conventional retirement age, but not in women. In men who leave work earlier, prevalence remains relatively high until after age 65.