Abstract
Objective: To explore the socio-cultural and religious stressors among nurses in public hospitals of Multan city, Pakistan.
Methodology: This exploratory study was carried out in gynecological wards of three public hospitals from 22nd May, 2020 to 14th September, 2020. We interviewed 63 registered nurses through sequential sampling technique. Thematic analysis was applied to the manually transcribed data.
Results: The major socio-cultural erroneous perceptions about nurses were disputed familial relationships, delayed marriage due to bad reputation of nurses, domination on household, financial support provision for natal family and overlooking parental responsibilities. Beyond this, misogynistic labels, non-professionalism, lack of competency and inappropriate anomalous profession for females were the major socio-cultural stigmatizations. These stigmatizations were also aligned with religious stressors such as deviating from the religious concept of female piousness and negating the Islamic viewpoint about hiding the women sexual and reproductive matters with male physicians and male family members.
Conclusion: The major socio-cultural and religious stressors among nurses were erroneous perceptions about nurses, stigmatizations about nursing profession and misinterpreted religious viewpoints about nurses. Forming a strong normative network for portraying the positive image of nurses and provision of awareness about professional nursing duties can mitigate the stress level among targeted population.

Key words: Exploring, Socio-cultural, religious, stressors, nurses, public, hospitals, Multan.