Abstract: Nursing is a stressful profession that deals with human aspects of health and illness. High level of work related stress may be a threat to patient safety. To assess the level of work – related stress among nursing officers at District General Hospital Vavuniya in Sri Lanka.A cross –sectional descriptive study was carried out at District General Hospital Vavuniya from Dec.2nd, 2014 to march 15th, 2015 to assess the level of work – Related Stress among Nursing Officers at District General hospital Vavuniya in Sri Lanka. A total 220 Nursing Officers participated and a self – administered questionnaire was used to obtain data. The Nursing Stress Scale was used to assess the level of stress among nursing officers. This study found that high stress levels were significantly associated with 40-49 year age group (p<0.001 ), residing in own home (p=0.015), spouses home (p=0.031), loneliness (p=0.023) having children of less than six years of age (p=0.024, three to five years of service (p=0.021) grade financial status was associated with significantly low stress level (p=0.011). The Hospital nurse workforce is experiencing high workload and are associated with burnout and job dissatisfaction, precursors to voluntary turnover that contribute to the understaffing of nurses in hospitals and poorer patient outcomes.