Introduction: Workplace stress represents a significant public health issue among healthcare profes-sionals, particularly nurses employed in high-risk departments, where professional demands, respon-sibility, and exposure to stressors are pronounced. Aim of the paper: The aim of this study was to ex-amine the relationship between perceived work-re-lated stress, psychosomatic symptoms, behavioral and cognitive reactions to stress, perceived benefits of physical activity, and the level of perceived stress among nurses employed in high-risk work settings. Methods: The study was conducted as a cross-sec-tional design on a sample of 82 nurses employed in high-risk departments at the Clinical Center of Serbia and the Institute for Orthopedic Surgery "Banjica." Perceived stress was assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), while additional items examined work-related stress, psychosomat-ic symptoms, behavioral and cognitive reactions to stress, as well as the perceived effects of physical activity. Data were analyzed using descriptive sta-tistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression. Results: Work-related stress, psychosomatic symp-toms, and behavioral and cognitive stress respons-es emerged as statistically significant predictors of perceived stress, with behavioral and cognitive responses showing the strongest contribution. Con-trary to expectations, perceived benefits of physical activity were not significantly associated with per-ceived stress, although the direction of the associa-tion was negative.
Vuković et al. (2025) studied this question.