BACKGROUND፡ Psychological distress is a state of emotional suffering and also characterized by somatic symptoms. Health care workers more prone psychological distress than general population. However, little attention was paid on psychological distress among nurses particularly in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing the prevalence of psychological distress and its’ associated factors among nurses in public hospitals, Southwest Ethiopia.METHOD: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 1st, 2018 to April 1st, 2018. All 282 eligible nurses in the selected public hospitals were enrolled. Data was collected using the predesigned tool like Self-Reporting Questionnaire version 20. Data were entered using EPI INFO version 7 and was exported to statistical packages for social science (SPSS) version 21.0 for analysis. Logistic regression analysis was employed and variables with a P-value of < 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.RESULT: A total of 282 eligible nurses were enrolled in the study with mean age of 28.71 [SD ±7.047]. The prevalence of psychological distress among nurses was 78(27.7%). Predictor variables like; nurses with job title of staff nurse, less working experience, poor interaction with staffs, fatigue, poor social support, perfectionism, and insomnia were more prone to develop the psychological distress.CONCLUSION: The study revealed that a considerable proportion of nurses had psychological distress. Therefore, it needs to develop psychological support strategies to improve the mental health resilience of nurses.KEYWORDS: Factors, Nurses, Prevalence, Psychological distress, Ethiopia