Abstract
Background: Occupational stress among nurses affects wellbeing, performance, and quality of patient care. Understanding stress levels and coping strategies is essential for developing supportive workplace interventions in tertiary healthcare settings.
Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 110 staff nurses working in a tertiary care hospital of Lahore, Pakistan. Data were collected using a structured stress scale and coping strategies questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: The majority of staff nurses experienced moderate occupational stress (68.18%), while 13.64% reported severe stress, and most demonstrated moderate coping strategies (70.91%), with a strong negative correlation between stress and coping (r = −0.68). Occupational stress showed significant associations with age (χ² = 14.47, df = 3, p = 0.002) and professional qualification (χ² = 7.01, df = 2, p = 0.030), but not with marital status, years of experience, number of children, or family type (p > 0.05).
Conclusion: Occupational stress among staff nurses is substantial and inversely related to coping capacity, underscoring the need for organizational-level interventions to strengthen coping and reduce stress in tertiary care settings.