Objective To understand the degree of job burnout in nurses of intensive care unit (ICU) and to explore its influence on compliance with head-of-bed elevation in patients receiving mechanical ventilation.Methods A total of 42 nurses of ICU in Tengzhou Central People's Hospital were investigated on the level of job burnout with the nursing burnout scale (NBS) from September 2016 to February 2017. Besides, the implementation of head-of-bed elevation in patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation without contraindications was inspected. The compliance with head-of-bed elevation was also calculated. The data was analyzed by SPSS 17.0.Results Among 42 nurses of ICU, there were 52.38% of them with severe emotion exhaustion, 59.52% with severe depersonalization, 40.47% with low personal accomplishment. The mean compliance with head-of-bed elevation was 64.29%. Spearman correlation analysis showed that the emotion exhaustion dimension had a negative correlation with compliance (r=-0.545,P<0.01). The depersonalization was negatively associated with compliance (r=-0.480,P<0.01). The sense of achievement had a positive correlation with compliance (r=0.516,P<0.01).Conclusions The job burnout in nurses of ICU has certain influences on compliance with head-of-bed elevation in patients receiving mechanical ventilation.