Stress and burnout have reached crisis levels among hospital nurses. The authors of this paper address this problem with the development of a scale to improve the 'fit' between a nurse and his/her work environment, thereby potentially increasing satisfaction, and reducing stress and burnout. Approximately 1000 hospital nurses, randomly selected from a large eastern state, described their work in each of 10 clinical areas; their reports enabled the construction of the Job Context Index, which rank orders the 10 settings on three dimensions, including general work pressure/uncertainty, routinization of tasks, and co-worker interdependence. Nurses, as well as educators and administrators, may find their index a useful tool for matching nurses' temperaments and workstyles with the characteristics of the clinical areas in which they might be working.