The aim of this study was to appraise stress levels of nurses working with mentally ill psychiatric hospital patients. This quantitative study was conducted in seven psychiatric hospitals in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, and was carried out with the use of the following instruments: Socio-demographic descriptive information of the sample and an inventory to identify the stress symptoms of the nurses. The sample size was 48, of which 42 (92.9%) were female. The results of the sample showed that 62% felt no stress, 30.9% were at the endurance level and 7% at the exhaustion level. No statistically significant relationship was found between the hours of work performed and the symptoms of stress. Therefore, the present study showed no occurrence of stress in these nurses.

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