Introduction : the purpose of this study stems from our research question, which is to have a clear identification and understanding of the reality of occupational stress among nursing staff in King Khaled Hospital in Hafr Al-Batin city.
Moreover, this research aims to improve the quality of nurses and their level of productivity to promote cost-effectiveness in the Saudi health care market.
The findings may help the King Khaled Hospital managers and leaders in Hafr Al-Batin to identify support strategies and resources that could be used to prepare nurses to cope with stresses while working in today's complex clinical environment.

Background to the study : numerous studies have determined that nursing is a stressful profession due to exposure to a wide variety of potentially stressful situations and environments.
Work overload, the unpredictability of staffing levels, caring for terminally ill patients, lack of time to provide emotional support to patients, fatigue, and confrontation with physicians and supervisors are repeatedly cited as sources of stress for nurses. Other stressors may include safety concerns, lack of support, problems outside the workplace, and home-work conflicts.

Method the study was descriptive and used a self-administered questionnaire. More specifically, it employed a cross-sectional design to determine nurses' perceptions and the reality of stress and to define the most stressful situation for nurses in various units.
Data was collected by distributing self-administered questionnaires comprising demographic data and 57 Expanded Nursing Stress Scale (ENSS) items.
Data were collected between April 2022 and May 2022 in King Khaled Hospital in Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia. In total, 206 nurses completed the ENSS.

Results : the results revealed that nurses were most often stressed by nursing situations associated with a patient's death and the dying process, i.e., the performance of procedures painful to patients; listening to patients, and conversations with them about the approaching death; a patient's death and doctor's absence when a patient is dying ; watching patients suffer, etc.
Married nurses showed more occupational stress for the subscales, Uncertainty Concerning Treatment. While, singles nurses showed more occupational stress for the subscales, Workload.
At the same time, non-Saudi nationality nurses showed occupational stress for problems with supervisors. Also, the study age group showed statistically significant differences in age group (More than 50 years) for subscale: uncertainty concerning treatment.

Conclusion the findings agree with other studies on stresses in nursing staff. Consequently, it is necessary to adopt steps to avoid and treat certain stresses. The outcomes of this study might significantly contribute to the identification of coping methods that may lessen the stress experienced by new registered nurses in hard and demanding daily nursing jobs.