Introduction Emotional mental disorder is a state of psychological distress that, if not handled properly, can lead to severe mental disorders and disabilities. One potential psychosocial hazard thought to be related to mental health disorders is the work-family conflict. Women who undertake dual roles, as housewives and workers, may potentially experience work-family conflict. The objectives of this research were to determine the prevalence of emotional mental disorder among female nurses in the university-based tertiary general hospital in Central Jakarta in 2016 and to determine its relationship with work-family conflict.

Methods This was a cross-sectional study by looking for the relationship between the work-family conflict, individual factors and work factors with emotional mental disorder. The instruments used in this study were work-family conflict questionnaire and SRQ 20. The study population was 264 randomly chosen female nurses who were working at university-based tertiary General hospital in Central Jakarta.

Result The prevalence of emotional mental disorder among female nurses was 23.5% with somatoform disorder as the most frequent disorders. The prevalence of work-family conflict was 45,1%, which 63% of them experiencing time-based conflict. The most dominant factors associated with emotional mental disorder were work-family conflict (OR 2.59, 95% CI: 1.44 to 4.65, p<0.001) and level of education (OR 0.07, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.62, p:0.010).

Conclusion Compare with the previous results from 1998, the prevalence of mental-emotional disorders among female nurses has increased from 17.7% to 23.5% in 2016. Female nurses who have work-family conflicts are 2.59 times higher risk of experiencing emotional mental disorders than nurses without work-family conflicts. It is urgent to develop a prevention program to protect female nurses from adverse health effect which can lead to decrease in productivity.