Introduction Nurses’ well-being has become a point of interest due to their stressful environment and consequent possible burnout.

Objectives to assess the influence of Tunisian nurses’ job perception on their occupational well-being and to identify its main determinants.

Methods Our exploratory survey of job perception included an ergonomic chronological observation of 55 workstations in Monastir and Mahdia university hospitals in order to evaluate workload factors. The choice of the observed positions was based on the type of care department, nurse age and gender. Nurses’ occupational well-being determinants were identified through a questionnaire driven by the Karasek and satisfaction scales.

Results The analysis of nurse job strain has shown that direct care requiring higher cognitive demands represents 27.26% of the total working time while administrative activities represent a higher proportion of nursing work. Furthermore, painful postures and movements were observed during about 20% of working time. Standing posture was adopted during 58.22% of the total working time, while sitting position was adopted only for a quarter (26.6%) of it.

Subjective perceived workload of occupational well-being was found to be higherthan on the day of activity observation. However, 69.1% of nurses felt stressed at work with a lack of autonomy and a lot of routine. They also reported to be under estimated by their supervisor while they are supported by their colleagues. In addition, most of them felt unsatisfied with their salary and were not confident in their career evolution.

Conclusion The discrepancy raised by our study between the real workload and the perceived well-being seems to be conditioned by organizational dysfunction and dissatisfaction with conditions of work performance. New organizational possibilities with brainstorming approaches of the nurses’ work environment are recommended and are being built through interdisciplinary research-action studies.