Background: The working environment for nurses is an important aspect to keep in mind. It affects both physical and mental health and can affect performance, work ethics and patient safety. The work environment is a comprehensive concept that includes various conditions, where the level of workload must be balanced with good teamwork, communication, division of labour and functioning leadership.

Aim: To describe the experiences of the nursing work environment and its influence on the nurse.

Method: A literature review was conducted. Searches were made for qualitative studies in the databases Pubmed and Cinahl. Thematic analysis was used to construct themes of the results.

Results: The literature review showed that in the nurses' work environment factors that have an impact on the nurse are several; where the main factors was high workload, low staffing, poor collaboration between staff and ineffective leadership, reduced focus on the nurse's well-being and participation indecision-making.

Conclusion: The literature review shows that nurses' work environment is affected by several factors. Nurses who worked with a high workload and in a substandard work environment risked causing a direct negative effect on patient safety and increased the risk of leaving the profession in the long run. It is essential that the experiences of the nursing work environment are addressed more effectively, and that leadership take studies like these more seriously.