Aim: To determine the professional profile and the work conditions of nurses working in intensive care units (ICU) in Colombia, Argentina, Peru and Brazil. Background: ICUs require a differentiated professional profile to provide quality care, and appropriate working conditions, leading to a transformation of care and management practices. Design: Descriptive multicentre cross-sectional observational study. Methods: An online survey was applied to identify both the characteristics of the professional profile and the working conditions. 1,427 ICU nursing professionals were included. RStudio statistical software was used for the analysis of the information. Descriptive statistics were used for the presentation of the results. The STROBE checklist for cross-sectional studies was used in this study. Results: Only 33.6% of the professionals had a specialisation degree in intensive care. The skills that were most frequently put into practice were communication (68.5%) and care management (78.5%). The most predominant nurse-to-patient ratios were 1:2, and greater than 1:6. 59.1% of the nurses had an indefinite term contract, 38.8% worked 48 hours per week and 49.8% had rotating shifts. Only 50.4% of them received incentives. The average salary ranged between 348 and 1,500 USD. 64.5% of the participants were satisfied with their job. Conclusion: It is necessary to strengthen nurses’ professional profile by promoting both postgraduate education and the development of troubleshooting and teamwork skills. It is necessary to standardise the nurse-to-patient ratio, improve wages and increase incentives to achieve greater job satisfaction. Relevance to practice: The knowledge and the improvement of both the professional profile and the work conditions of nurses working in intensive care units will improve the quality of the care given to critical patients and, therefore, the quality of health outcomes.Fil: Achury Saldaña, Diana Marcela. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Achury Beltrán, Luisa Fernanda. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Rodríguez Colmenares, Sandra Mónica. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Alvarado Romero, Herly Ruth. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Cavallo, Edhit. Universidad Católica de Cordoba; ArgentinaFil: Ulloa, Ana Cristina. Universidad Católica de Cordoba; ArgentinaFil: Merino, Virginia. Hospital Edgardo Rebagliati Martins; PerúFil: da Silva Barreto, Mayckel. Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul; BrasilFil: Andrade Fonseca, David. B. Braun Avitum; ColombiaFil: Muñoz Acuña, Doraly. Universidad de los Llanos. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Betancur Manrique, Yanier. Universidad Católica de Manizales. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Rodríguez Marín, Jorge Eliecer. Universidad Católica de Manizales. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: González Gómez, Ana Angelica. Universidad de Cartagena. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Herrera Corpas, Katerine. Universidad de Cartagena. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Andrade Méndez, Brayant. Universidad Surcolombiana. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Vargas Toloza, Ruby Elizabeth. Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: Martínez Rojas, Sandra Milena. Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander. Faculty of Nursing; ColombiaFil: De las Salas Martínez, Roxana Patricia. Universidad del Norte. Faculty of Nursing; Colombia