Embitterment among German academic and non‐academic nurses

Purpose – Nursing staff display symptoms of psychological stress more frequently than members of other professions. The subjective experience of embitterment also takes on a greater significance. This paper seeks to determine if level of education has an impact on the degree of embitterment as a function of educational status.Design/methodology/approach – A between subjects design was used with academic status as the independent variable and self‐report embitterment, using the German version of the Bern Embitterment Inventory, as the primary dependent variable. A random sample of 212 German nurses with academic and non‐academic education participated in the study.Findings – The comparison between academic and non‐academic nursing staff revealed a statistically significant difference indicating that an academic education has a positive effect on the subjective perception of embitterment (p=0.001).Originality/value – Considering the current situation of academic nurses within the German health care system a...