Text Box: PARENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND STRESSORS AND STRESSORS IN PEDIATRIO INTENSIVE CARE UNITS Chen J-L Peking Union Medical College School of Nursing, Beijing, China Objective: To identify parental environmental stress and stressors and to compare environmental stressors and stress between the mothers and the fathers in PICU. Methods: It is descriptive study. Subjects consisted of twenty parents whose children were admitted to PICU at BeiJing Children's Hospital in China. Structured interview method was used for data collection. Demographic data from and the Parental Stressor Scale: Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PSS: PICU) developed by Carter and Miles in 1983 was used. Results: It indicated that all subjects perceived 21 items out of 39 items as stressors. All subjects perceived all items under parental role alteration dimension as stressors. None of environmental factors defined in this study was perceived as nonstressor by all subjects, parental role alteration, child's appearance, child's behavior and emotion were perceived by the subjects as extremely stressful with the mean score of 4.17, 3.98 and 3.7 respectively. Sudden sound of monitor alarms was rated as extremely stressors except for four items. Conclusions: There were significant differences in parental environmental stress level between mothers and fathers on the dimensions of child's behavior and emotions staff communication, procedure behavior of professional staffs and child's appearance with the P value of .000, .000, .000, .000, and 001 respectively. Fathers had a significant higher mean score og stress level than mothers. 2312