This study was undertaken in order to examine the effect of hardiness on stress-causing factors, defined in this study as burnout in nursing. The subjects were 248 nurses working in three general hospitals in Taejon. The instruments used for this study were a survey of general characteristics, modified Health-Related Hardiness Scale(HRHS) (25 items), job stress scale (63 items), and burnout scale (20 items). Analysis of data was done through the mean, percentage, Pearson correlation coefficient, and stepwise multiple regression done with a SAS program. The results of this study are as follows. 1) The average item score for the job stress was high at 4.44. In the subcategories, the highest degree of stress was night duty(5.11), and work overload(4.70), responsibility for extra affairs(4.70), conflict in nurse-doctor relationships(4.69), and low reward(4.63) in that order. 2) In the stepwise multiple regression analysis, hardiness(11.55%) was a significant determinant of burnout along with job stress(17.24%) and job duration(12.94%). The results of this study show that hardiness has an effect on psychological distress caused by stress.