Nurses’ experiences of occupational stress and its influence on their wellbeing and caring practices

Nursing is widely recognised as a profession associated with high levels of occupational stress. While quantitative studies have documented associations between occupational stress, wellbeing, and caring behaviours, less is known about how nurses themselves experience and describe these relationships in their everyday working lives. This study aimed to explore nurses’ experiences of occupational stress and its effects on personal wellbeing and caring practices. A qualitative study was conducted using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), underpinned by an experiential, contextualist orientation. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 15 nurses in a tertiary teaching hospital. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. Interviews lasted between 30 and 40 min and were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis proceeded in six phases and generated four themes. Four themes were generated: (1) Carrying the Hidden Weight of Caring — cumulative psychological strain from patient suffering and loss; (2) Running Without Pause: The Erosion of Recovery — excessive demands, time pressure, and fear of error — with experiences varying according to nurses’ sense of control over prioritisation, the quality of collegial relationships within their unit, and whether the organisational environment acknowledged the demands placed on staff; (3) When Work Refuses to Stay at Work — stress spillover into home life, sleep disruption, and emotional depletion; and (4) The Fragile Persistence of Caring— tension between structural constraints and a sustained commitment to relational, person-centred care. Occupational stress in nursing is experienced as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon affecting personal wellbeing and professional caring behaviour. Integrating and refining experiential processes described in prior qualitative work, the study offers an interpretive account of three experiential pathways through which stress becomes overwhelming: the compression of recovery time between back-to-back demands, the displacement of relational patient care by administrative tasks, and the invisibility of emotional labour under pressure to maintain professional composure. Despite these constraints, nurses actively preserve humanistic caring. Addressing occupational stress requires systemic action at the unit and organisational levels, rather than relying on individual coping alone.