Background The nursing profession is known to induce high levels of stress, and being simultaneously engaged in a stressful professional occupation and having a family life can lead to work-family conflict. Healthcare providers require recruitment and retention strategies that preserve nurses’ quality of work-life and mitigate work-family conflict.

Aim To investigate the relationship between quality of work-life and work-family conflict among hospital nurses in Iran, as well as the relationships between work-family conflict and quality of work life, and between age, professional experience, type of employment, work shift and marital status.

Method This cross-sectional study was conducted among 378 nurses working in six Iranian teaching hospitals, who were selected using random quota sampling. Data on age, professional experience, type of employment, work shift and marital status was collected. The study questionnaire was based on the 53-item Quality of Work Life scale and the 18-item Work-Family Conflict scale. Correlations were established using Pearson’s chi-squared and eta-squared tests.

Results A total of 93% of participants experienced moderate or high levels of work-family conflict and 83% had a low or moderate quality of work life. On average, the levels of work-family conflict and quality of work life were moderate. Quality of work life decreased with increasing work-family conflict.

Conclusion Healthcare providers can use these results to inform their recruitment and retention strategies. Nurse managers can mitigate any adverse effects of work-family conflict on quality of work life by offering staff interventions such as short training courses on how to manage work-family conflict.