Abstract
Background: Staff nurses working continuously twenty four hours during the day and exposing to workload through achieving their tasks that directly influence on their physical and emotional status. Workload at work setting makes staff nurses not able to apply work design that affect the main goal of hospital. Aim: this study aims to assess the impact of nursing workload on work design as perceived by staff nurses. Design: A descriptive research design was used. Setting: the study was conducted at Sohag University Hospital medical, surgical and general intensive care units. Subjects: Convenient sample (n=240) nurses. Tools:  two tools for data collection; 1) part one demographic data; part two nursing workload questionnaire; 2) work design questionnaire were used for date collection. Results: Study revealed that the highest percentage of participants(87.1%) perceived high level of nursing workload, the high mean score of workload was related to work environment(37.54 ± 5.21). There was negative correlation with highly statistical significant differences between nursing workload and work design (r=-3.753^**,   P=0.00). Conclusion: Nursing workload has direct effect on work design. When nursing director manages the nursing workload will lead to improving work design. Recommendations: The study recommended that, nurse manager should make continuous meetings with staff nurses and provides continuous feedback to them for their performance, design stress and management programs and organizes workshops for nurses to help reduce high mental stress that will decrease workload and improve work design.