RÉSUMÉ
PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine the relationship between job stress and work-related musculoskeletal symptoms of hospital nurses. METHOD: The questionnaires were administered to 290 nurses working in a general hospital located in S city from September 1 to 15, 2008. The data were analysed with descriptive statistics, and logistic regression test by SPSS WIN 14.0. RESULTS: With the NIOSH criteria 1, the musculoskeletal symptoms were prevalent in 66.8% of the subjects. The musculoskeletal symptoms by body parts appeared mostly on leg/foot(40.6%) and followed by shoulder (38.7%), waist(30.3%), neck(23.6%), hand/wrist/ finger(14.0%) and arm/elbow(4.4%). There were statistically significant differences in prevalence rate of musculoskeletal symptoms by age, work department, career and job stress. CONCLUSION: When developing a management program for musculoskeletal symptoms of hospital nurses, it is necessary to fully understand nurses' work considering each hospital's nursing administration system.