Background: Providing nursing care is an extremely challenging job which may lead to serious effects on sleep quality thus leading to lower work productivity and reduced job satisfaction. Thus, it becomes increasingly important to adopt effective and adaptive coping strategies to deal with the such stressors. Through this study, we hope to gain better insight on the challenges faced by nurses working in a cancer setting in order to initiate appropriate interventions to improve work satisfaction and efficiency among them.

Aim: To assess the sleep quality of Nurses and the coping styles employed by them to deal with the stressors at the workplace. 

Method: This cross-sectional study included (N = 59) nurses working across different ward settings and intensive care units in a tertiary cancer hospital. The sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index while Brief COPE was used to assess the coping styles. 

Results: The results indicated that majority of the nurses (61%) had poor sleep quality. However, most nurses employed Problem focused coping (63%) compared to Emotion focused (22%) and avoidant coping (15%). A thematic analysis of the responses resulted in emergence of four major themes causing stress which include low work-life balance, work over load, interpersonal relations and career growth. 

Conclusion: Poor sleep quality among the nurses can be attributed to several reasons mostly pertaining to work stress. Thus, it becomes increasingly important to address these issues and provide adequate support on an institutional level to improve their psychological well-being.