ORIGINAL ARTICLE Bali Medical Journal (Bali Med J) 2018, Volume 7, Number 2: 521-525 P-ISSN.2089-1180, E-ISSN.2302-2914 521 Open access: www.balimedicaljournal.org and ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/bmj CrossMark Published by DiscoverSys ABSTRACT Introduction: Professional self-concept is defined as an individual’s perception of self as a professional person, which affects different aspects of professional performance. This study was aimed to investigate the professional self-concept and its relation to work stress in a sample of Iranian nurses. Methods: This research is a cross-sectional study using Cowin’s 36-item questionnaire of professional self-concept and the Expanded Nursing Stress Scale (ENSS) in three educational hospitals of Yazd, Iran. A total of 150 nurses were included. We used descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficient for data analysis in SPSS 22 . Results: The analysis of gathered data was done separately for included hospitals due to the nature of the study. Only in one hospital, a statistical relationship was found between professional self- concept and nursing stress while in the other two hospitals, the same relationship was not statistically significant. This finding may be due to different working conditions in different types of hospitals. Conclusion: Although the definitive confirmation of the relationship between professional self-concept and working stress requires further studies, the approved effect of professional self-concept on some aspects of nursing stress in the studied hospitals can have important policy implications. Keywords: Hospital, Nurse, Professional Self-concept, Working stress, Nursing stress Cite This Article: Montazeralfaraj, R., Ahmadi, E., Tafti, A.D., Barati, O., Bahrami, M.A. 2018. Measuring the nurses’ professional self-concept and its correlation with working stress in Iranian educational Hospitals. Bali Medical Journal 7(2): 521-525. DOI:10.15562/bmj.v7i2.938 Measuring the nurses’ professional self-concept and its correlation with working stress in Iranian educational Hospitals Razieh Montazeralfaraj, 1,2 Elham Ahmadi, 1 Arefeh Dehghani Tafti, 3 Omid Barati, 4,5 Mohammad Amin Bahrami 1,2* INTRODUCTION Professional self-concept is an individual’s perception of self as a professional. Tis concept can afect the thinking style, role development, and professional performance. 1-3 In recent decades, the concept of professional self-concept has been consid- ered and studied in diferent careers. 4,5 Research in the feld of professional self-concept can generally be divided into three categories. Te frst category included studies that have descriptively examined the level of professional self-concept among vari- ous occupations. Te second category of researchs studied the afecting factors or the determinants of professional self-concept. Tis category showed that a wide range of factors, such as individual, environmental, and occupational factors as well as the performance of the educational system afects the development of professional self-concept. Te last category of studies examined the consequences/ outcomes of professional self-concept and proved that professional self-concept could afect various aspects of professional life and performance. 6-12 Nursing is an important profession in the health system and plays an important role to in provid- ing health care. 13 Te professional performance of nurses may determine the quality of health services and the outcomes of health systems’ functions. 14 On the other hand, according to existing literature, nurses are among the experts who are at high risk of working stress because of their work’s nature. Although all occupations have working stress, occupations which deal with human lives, such as nursing, exposure to working stress is greater and the consequences of the same stress are worse. 15,16 Working stress can be defned as the natural response of an individual to the pressures of work and working environment. 17,18 According to current reports, nursing is one of the most stressful profes- sions. 14 Factors such as shifs, occupational respon- sibilities, and issues related to the administrative system are among the main causes of working stress in nursing. In addition, many other factors such as a nurse’s demographic characteristics, personality traits, socioeconomic status, and many other factors also contribute to nursing stress. 19-25 Nursing stress afects the performance of nurses, in addition to the individual consequences, which occurs as physical, psychological and behavioral disorders. Such stress can lead to dissatisfaction or reduced job satisfac- tion, job fatigue, increased absenteeism and burn- out, reduced productivity, increased nursing errors and ultimately reduced quality of nursing care which endangers patients’ health. 19-21,26-30 Terefore, 1 Healthcare management department, Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences, Yazd, Iran 2 Hospital management research center, Shahid Sadoughi Hospital, Yazd, Iran 3 Epidemiology and biostatistics department, Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences, Yazd, Iran 4 Healthcare management department, Shiraz University of medical sciences, Shiraz, Iran 5 Health human resource research center, School of management and information sciences, Shiraz University of medical sciences, Shiraz, Iran * Correspondence to: Mohammad Amin Bahrami (Ph.D.), Healthcare management department, Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences, Yazd, Iran aminbahrami1359@gmail.com Received: 2017-11-04 Accepted: 2018-5-1 Published: 2018-5-2