Does busy ward enviorments and reduced staff levels cause stess in nursing staff?

i am conducting some research into increased stress levels within my working area. i aim to find why is it that nurses are under so much pressure and stress,do you think that we get enough support and do you think that stress related illness isuch as depression is on the increase within the nursing profession.

I work in labour & delivery and I can tell you that there is a lot of stress in my area because of a lot of different reasons. Firstly the growing population in our area. Our unit was built for 250 deliveries a month but we average atleast 500. We have added 2 extra rooms but it doesn't help. The poor working condition and morale has caused people to look for jobs elsewhere, leaving us short staffed all the time but with higher patient ratios. Then we have seen an acutity in high risk patients. A lot of our patients are not straight forward deliveries so they demand a lot more of our time. The nurses support one another but are given little support from doctors and management.
I don't think this leads to depression per se, but there are constant colds and bugs going around and we are highly supectible because we are over worked.

Hope this helps....

Well I used to work in a nursing home and we never had enough staff. I would say that not enough people working is a big stress factor. The nurses have meds to pass and make sure they all get their meds. They have to oversee the aids and help them if needed.
Then you can get aids because the pay is next to nothing and who wants to do all that hard work for next to nothing.