The purpose of this study was to determine pattern of the stress perceived by stroke patients over time. The ultimate goal of the research is to provide data to help nurses to design the plan of nursing care of the stroke patients both in the hospital and at home. A total of 57 admitted stroke patients were collected from one general hospital in Seoul from June, 12 to September, la, 1993. The data were collected for three phases(within one week after leaving the hospital). The tools for this study, three scales were used ; Stress scale developed by the investigator. Constitution classifing scale designed by Kho(1984), and Self-care measuring scale by Kang(1984). Data were analyzed in four steps using statistical analysis. First, demographic data were determined by descriptive statistics. Second. the pattern of stress perceived by stroke patients across three phases was measured using repeated measures ANOVA. Third, stress of stroke patients classified by constitution, paralyzed area. and attack frequency were measured using ANOVA or t-test, and the pattern of stress by group over time was determined using paired t-test in post hoc test. Fourth. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationship between the stress and self-care activities. The results of this study are ; 1. The pattern of stress across three phases ; There was a decrease of the stress across three phases. In general. psychological stress as the highest among three phases(F=36.92. P=.000). There was a statistically significant difference of the physical stress(F=34.55, p=.000), the psychological stress (F=15.49, p=.0005) and the social stress (F=24.71. p=.000) among three phases. There was a statistically significant difference of the stress between the first phase (on admission) and the second phase(before leaving the hospital) and was a decrease of the stress (t =6.36. p=.000). 2. The pattern of stress of stroke patients classified by constitution across three phases ; Stroke patients classified as So-Eum perceived the highest stress among three groups(Tae-Eum, So-Eum. So-Yang). There was no statistically significant difference of stress according to the constitution of stroke patients among three phases. Hence. stress was not influenced by the constitution of stroke patients, but there was a statistically significant difference of stress over time. 3. The pattern of stress of stroke patients classified by the paralyzed area across three phases ; Right paralyzed stroke patients perceived higher stress than left paralyzed stroke patients. There was, however, no statistically significant difference of stress between two groups except 2nd phase. There was no statistically significant difference of the perception of stress bet ween the right and left paralyzed stroke patients. 4. The pattern of stress of stroke patients classified by the frequency of the relapse of the disease across three phases ; Stress was higher in stroke patients who had the relapse of the disease twice more than the first time. There was, however, no statistically significant difference of stress between two groups. There was no statistically significant difference of stress of stroke patients according to the relapse of the disease among three phases. Hence, stress was no influenced by the relapse of the disease. 5. The relationship between the stress and self-care activities ; There was a negative relationship between the stress and self-care activities each phase(on admission, r= -.1563 ; before leaving the hospital, r= -.4030 ; after leaving the hospital, r= -.5291). Hence, the higher the self-care activities, the lower the stress. This study has three important findings. First finding was that psychological stress perceived by stroke patients was the highest among three phases. The second finding was that factors such as the constitution, the paralyzed area, and the relapse of the disease did not have an influence on the stress perceived by stroke patients..