Abstract: Purpose: China has been pursuing “zero COVID-19” policy since March 2020. Front-line health workers shoulder the responsibilities implementing this policy. However, little is known about how the on-going “zero COVID-19” campaign shape Chinese nurses’ job demands and their connection with burnout. This study aims to fill the gap. Methods: Regression analysis was used to analyze cross-sectional data from 336 Chinese nurses, including 108 with frequent involvement in COVID-19 work and 147 with low involvement. Results: Overall sample results reveal that nurses’ burnout is positively associated with workload, emotional demands, and work-family conflict, and negatively associated with relationship with supervisor, remuneration, and independence of work. In addition, emotional intelligence mitigates the positive relationship between workload and burnout. Comparison analyses between groups with low and high frequency reveal: 1) workload is positively related to burnout among in both groups; 2) in high frequency group, emotional demands is positively related to burnout, and emotional intelligence accentuates such positive relationship between the two variables; 3) remuneration is negatively related to burnout only in high frequency group, but independence of work negatively related to burnout in low frequency group. 4) nurses in high frequency group reported higher levels of workload and relationships with supervisor.

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