Nursing has been considered one of the most stressful professions. Nurses’ stress is attributed largely to the physical efforts, suffering and emotional demands of patients and families, work hours, interpersonal relationships and other pressures that are core to the nurses’ work. With a view to assess the level of stress in nurses working in hospitals, a non experimental descriptive survey with a typical descriptive design was undertaken on 50 staff nurses selected by non-probability convenient sampling technique. Demographic proforma and modified Expanded Nursing Stress scale (ENSS) were used as tools. The stress scale consisted of 35 items classified into 8 areas which included death and dying, conflict with doctors, inadequate emotional preparation, problems relating to peers, problems relating to supervisor, work load, uncertainty concerning treatment and patients and their families. The interpretation of the scores ranging from 0 -35 was mild level, 36-70 moderate, 71-105 severe and 106- 140 as very severe level of Stress. The study revealed that more than half of nurses (52%) had experienced severe level of stress. Whereas workload and patients and their families (70%) accounted for major stressors for stress level among nurses, other leading causes for increased level of stress were found to be problems relating to peers (64%), death & dying (60%) and problems relating to supervisors (56%). The study also discovered that there was no significant association between level of stress and baseline variables. The study concluded that the level of stress was continuing to escalate and it was believed that nurses’ stress adversely affects the patient care. The investigator recommended that hospitals should take counter measures to relieve stress among nurses as nursing is regarded as a potentially stressful occupation. 

Keywords: Stress; Nurses; Hospitals.