key: cord-0970825-e7h9hy52
authors: Muschalla, Beate; Vollborn, Clio; Sondhof, Anke
title: Embitterment in the General Population after Nine Months of COVID-19 Pandemic
date: 2021-03-03
journal: Psychother Psychosom
DOI: 10.1159/000514621
sha: a6d7bfd113c859ed22d27f89c8de6524c5b4361a
doc_id: 970825
cord_uid: e7h9hy52

nan

past few months, I've had to deal with a life event, which made me …." followed by 19 items ("…feel embit-tered…"), mood, thoughts of revenge, etc.

Participants had a mean age of 47.5 years (SD 13.6; range 14-92) and 55% were female. Half of them had a college or university diploma (54.3%), 39.9% had finished an apprenticeship, and 5.8% had no professional qualification. Most (69.3%) were married or in a relationship. Previous treatment for mental illness was reported by 29.9%; this is similar to the general epidemiology of mental disorders, which is constantly at about 30% [8] . It was reported by 2% of the participants that they had had a coronavirus infection and 80% said that they experienced relevant burdens during the pandemic.

A high degree of embitterment (score ≥2.5 on the PTED scale [7] ; range 0-4) occurred in 16% of the sample. There were more people with embitterment (E: 9.5% of the total sample) than with embitterment and mental illness (EM: 6.17%); 60.87% reported no mental illness and no embitterment (NN) and 23.4% had mental illness but no embitterment (M). Embitterment was only weakly correlated with unspecific mental well-being (r = -0.258**). The embittered individuals reported a higher number of social and economic burdens than those without embitterment (e.g., job loss; E: 6%, EM: 12% vs. NN: 3%, M: 6%).

The occurrence of embitterment of 16% during the pandemic is quite a high rate in comparison with 3% in Muschalla pre-pandemic times in the same region [9] . When looking into the literature, we found that embitterment has already been brought into the discussion in the context of the coronavirus pandemic [10] , and also that increased rates of embitterment of up to 15-45% may occur in contexts of critical life events [1] . Our research reports the first empirical data on embitterment occurring concurrently with events happening during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One possible reason for this increased rate of embitterment is that critical events and injustices may have happened more often than usual during the pandemic, or else that people have perceived the ongoing and fast-changing conditions during the pandemic with increasing anger. Embitterment is one of the few mental health conditions that occurs in an event-related manner [2] . It can be triggered in healthy persons by events of injustice [2] . Embitterment is distinguishable from general mental disorders. The economic and social consequences of pandemic management should be carefully recognized and prevented by policy.

Embitterment and posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED): an old, frequent, and still underrecognized problem

Spectrum of embitterment manifestations

Acceleration of Anxiety, Depression, and Suicide: Secondary Effects of Economic Disruption Related to CO-VID-19. Front Psychiatry

Anxiety Disorder, and Suicide Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Is there a post-COVID syndrome? Pneumologe (Berl)

The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: a systematic review of the literature

The post-traumatic embitterment disorder self-rating scale (PTED scale)

The size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe

Representative Data. Work Anxiety, Embitterment, Work Capacities according to the Mini-ICF-APP-S. Final project report 2020

The Nature of the Construct and Critical Issues in the Light of COVID-19

The manuscript was proof-read by Kelly Proofreading GmbH.

The study was approved by the ethics and data protection committee of the Technische Universität Braunschweig.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

There was no funding.

B.M. provided the research question and study design and analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. A.S. and C.V. collected the data and contributed to data analysis.