Context: Nurses presented with highest levels of occupational stress and resulting distress when compared to other healthcare workers, which could be due to nurses spending more time than doctors with patients with frequent rotations of duties and direct contact of the nurses with the patients. Most studies have focused on psychological distress among nurses in the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We in addition wanted to explore their concerns, factors which could possibly mitigate their distress in addition to studying coping strategies used by them and its association with psychological distress which was the aim of the present study. Settings and design: It was a cross-sectional study using convenient sampling where snowballing technique was used to contact 100 frontline nurses working for a dedicated COVID-19 care center. Materials and methods: The study tools included were socio-demographic questionnaire, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 (DASS 21), Brief COPE scale, and a list of concerns and perceived needs which could mitigate distress which was sent using google forms to participants after obtaining informed consent from each participant. Statistical analysis used: Descriptive data were tabulated using percentages. Statistical analysis was conducted using Chi-square test for categorical variables, t-test for continuous variables, and Spearman correlation for correlations. Results: Our study had 100 participants, of which 43 (43%) were males and 57 (57%) were females. Majority of them were married (60%) and living with family (77%). The predominant concern was death due to COVID-19 infection. Nurses in the study reported that factors such as family support, working as a team and positive attitudes of colleagues, recognition of work by management could possibly help in mitigating distress. Those with high stress had significantly higher fear of death due to COVID-19 infection (p = 0.001). We found a significant association between high emotion focused and avoidant type of coping with higher stress (p = 0.0001) and high problem-focused coping with lower stress (p = 0.0013). Conclusion: The results of the present study highlight the need to better understand psychological distress and coping strategies among nurses providing care to COVID-19 patients. Administration should establish a system to support nurses and monitor their psychological health.