Background <p>Nurses, especially female nurses, play key roles in both the family and the health care workplace. Thus, work–family conflict is a key issue in nursing management. However, little is known about the impact of supervisors’ controlling behaviour on work-family conflict among nurses.</p> Method <p>A cross-sectional study was conducted from June to September 2023. The sample on which the study focused included 684 frontline nurses working in 2 hospitals in Shanxi Province, China. We used correlation analysis and the PROCESS macro for SPSS software to test our hypotheses.</p> Results <p>The results showed that perceived supervisor psychological control positively affects nurses’ work-family conflict by frustrating their basic psychological needs. Moreover, nurses’ psychological detachment moderates this mediated effect.</p> Conclusions <p>Hospital managers should be aware of the fact that psychological control on the part of leadership may be harmful to nurses’ ability to cope with work-family conflict. Nurse managers should try to establish conditions that are conducive to satisfying rather than frustrating nurses’ basic psychological needs and provide nurses with ways of detaching themselves psychologically from their work to help them decrease their work-family conflict.</p> Clinical trial number <p>Not applicable.</p>