The aim of this study was to investigate the level of work-related stress and its reasons, expressions and coping strategies among nurses during the COVID-19 situation.

Methods. A quantitative research strategy was applied for the study. Data were collected using a structured survey. Nurses answered 92 questions divided into four sections: reasons of stress (32 questions); the impact of stress on personal health (20 questions); stress coping strategies (31 questions); sociodemographic data and stress level (9 questions). 83 items were rated by the Likert scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. In total, 180 nurses participated in the study.

Results. The main reasons of work-related stress to occur were the risk of contracting (67.2%) or transmitting (87.1%) the virus to family members, requirements for the use of personal protective equipment (61.1%), changes in a work organization due to increasing workload and working time (56.9%), lack of nursing staff (64.2%) and high media attention exclusively for doctors rescuing the lives of those suffering from the disease and thus ignoring the contribution of nurses (52.3%). To cope with stress, nurses mostly used to follow the work under COVID-19 situation guidelines (82.1%), to stay calm and not think a lot about the pandemic (71.7%); specific relaxation techniques or spiritual interventions were rarely used.

Conclusions. Nurses expressed work-related stress concerned with the specific reasons of the coronavirus pandemic: fear to be infected or transmit infection to family, unforeseen clinical situations, permanent use of personal protective devices and shortage of human resources in the unit. Use of education and information tools, the application of relaxing methods and a rational approach to the critical situation were the most common work-related stress reduction methods used by nurses during the coronavirus pandemic in Lithuania.

Methods. An anonymous survey was performed during May 1−31, 2012. General practice and community care nurses from 4 primary health care centers of Kaunas city participated in the survey (N=230, response rate 82.1%). All the respondents were women. A 56-item Extended Nursing Stress Scale was used. The Committee on Bioethics at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences provided permission to perform this survey.

Results. The most frequent stressful situations for nurses were related to patient’s death and dying, as well as to situations of patient care and communication with their relatives. Discrimination was the rarest stressful factor among the nurses. The nurses were enthusiastic at work and 83% of them had no intent to leave.

Conclusions. Death and dying are the most stressful factors for nurses at work in primary care centers. The other source of stress is irrelevant professional preparation of nurses, shortage of necessary knowledge and uncertainty in meeting patients’ needs. The nurses expressed satisfaction with their job and felt their work was pleasant for them. Intent to leave the job had a weak positive relationship with nurses’ stress at work and correlated with their job satisfaction.