This thesis uses longitudinal and cross-sectional comparative studies to explore the relationship between work contents, psychosocial work environment and wellbeing among district nurses during periods of reorganisation of the primary health care in Sweden and during periods of peace and war in Croatia. The goal is to increase knowledge about psychosocial work environment and sources of stress among district nurses. Four different groups of female district nurses were studied. Papers I-III present analyses of a stratified random sample of 61 district nurses in Stockholm County, who were organised in three different ways. They were studied with questionnaires, physiological and biochemical measurements four times during 12 months in 1985/86 during a process of change of the primary health care, mainly due to the introduction of primary health care teams. Although district nurses in the primary care teams had a lower objective workload compared to district nurses in traditional models, they reported more problems and conflicts, which however decreased, possibly an adaptation to new tasks and a redefined role. In the whole group of district nurses there was a deterioration of the psychosocial work environment on the fourth measurement occasion, accompanied by small but significant elevations of cholesterol, triglycerides and calcium. There was no significant interaction with age or smoking status. Analyses revealed that the menstrual cycle phase did not have any influence on the findings. Paper IV makes a comparative analysis of 236 (out of 768) district nurses in the county of Stockholm and 69 (out of 81) district nurses in the county of Zagreb, both groups working with individual responsibility for all aspects of nursing care, besides health promotion and prevention. The district nurses in Stockholm surveyed in 1992/93 experienced another kind of reorganisation with the introduction of the family physician system, economic incentives and privatisation. The district nurses in Zagreb were surveyed during peacetime ...