EN
Introduction: Professional issues change in different periods of history influenced by emerging conditions in society, and some of them are characterized by universal. Purpose: To examine the problems that professional nurses encounter at work. Materials and methods: The research was conducted with 300 respondents, using the author’s survey questionnaire. Results: Nurses who have completed a secondary medical school degree earn largely the same pay as nurses who have completed a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree (p=0.0003). For the theme of career choice, most respondents (80%) reported their desire to help other people, and 62% considered the work they performed as rather satisfactory. 97,7% considered the low pay as a source of dissatisfaction with nursing (97.7%), 68,7% also pointed an insufficient number of nurses in relation to the number needed, and the health status of patients. Financial security resulted in a feeling of satisfaction (31%). In the workplace 36% of the respondents were mostly disturbed by bureaucracy and formalism, and 34% by the shifting of responsibilities onto nurses by doctors. Daily problems in the workplace were generally connected with health problems (36%), experiencing tension (20%), and reduced motivation to work (19%). The respondents most frequent complaints were about backache (52%), and 87.2% of them were exposed to aggression from patients in the workplace. Conclusions: The main aspect of nursing that elicited a sense of dissatisfaction was the low pay, and a sense of satisfaction was financial security. The professional problems noted by the respondents correlated with health problems, job stress, reduced motivation to work, increasing distance to the employees, and a feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration with the job.