This study aimed to clarify the relationship between nurses’ workloadand subjective burden on psychological distress.
Methods: We conducted an analytical cross-sectional analysis using self-administered questionnaires in December 2020. In total,
1299 nurses working at multiple hospitals in Prefecture A in Japan participated in this study through convenience sampling.
Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed with psychological distress as the dependent variable and changes in
workload and subjective work-related burden as the independent variables.
Results: We mean score of nurses’ psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic was 6.73 ± 5.28. /e hierarchical
multiple regression analysis demonstrated that psychological distress was positively correlated with workload. However, after the
subjective work-related burden was included as an independent variable, the eAect of the change in workload on psychological
distress disappeared. An increase in subjective work-related burden was found to be the biggest inBuencing factor of psychological
distress, with the level of psychological distress higher when the subjective work-related burden was high.
We recommend paying more attention to nurses’ subjective perceptions than issues such
as increased workload. /e practical suggestion oAered is that nursing managers should pay attention to changes in nurses’
workloads and their perceptions of those changes, as subjective perceptions could help reduce psychological distress.
