This investigation was designed for identifying stress response of the psychiatric patients in community. The intent of this investigation is to develop appropriate nursing intervention that is providing the data for the management of the psychiatric patients in community. The report of the psychiatric patients about their won physiological and psychological stress symptom that was useful to make nursing plan for them. Symptom of Stress Inventory was adopted as a tool for the measurement of stress responses. Raw data were collected using a direct survey method of questionnaire, from March 22th to April 30th in 1999. 92 samples were selected from psychiatric patients who were out-patients in the department of psychiatry, and in six mental health service centers located in Seoul and Kyungki-Province area. SPSS program was used for statistical analysis and the data was analyzed in terms of frequency (percentile score), t-test, F-test, ANOVA, Pearson`s correlation coefficient. The results of this investigation are as follows: 1. The mean score of total SOS of the psychiatric patients(M=1.00, S.D=.74) were over . 70. This result need to require the management of stress. 2. The mean score of SOS subscales related to emotional response were relatively high (ranging from 1.19 ~ 1.42). 3. Between the age and the mean score of total SOS there was significant difference and the result of Scheffe test showed the highest stress response in 30`s than 20`s, over 40`s. 4. According to the degree of stress perception by psychiatric patients there was significant difference in the mean score of total SOS (p<.001, F=6.61) and the more the degree of stress perception was, the higher was the stress response. These results showed the stress response perceived by psychiatric patients in community was high. With higher emotional response the management for stress is more required than response perceived by psychiatric patients. High stress response of psychiatric patients lies in uneffective taking care for stress and vulnerability of the stress. The specialists in a part of stress insist that on the side of nursing science the stress management of psychiatric patients doesn`t change the status of stress, but the stress response of the related. In short, this study of stress response perceived by psychiatric patients in community can be considered as basic data to new direction of stress management.