Introduction: Coronavirus is an infection disease with respiratory symptoms and it is a virus that can be transmitted between humans as a mutated virus. Coronavirus-19 disease can lead to stress and anxiety among hospital staff. At present, one of the most important factors affected the occupational performance of the treatment staff and their ability to perform the overshadowed tasks effectively is Covid-19 disease. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between job stress and job performance of nurses in the covid-19 epidemic from the perspective of nurses in Zahedan teaching hospitals in 2021.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed by available sampling method. Data were obtained using forms collected during three months in the inpatient ward of covid-19 in Zahedan teaching hospitals. The research samples were 235 nurses working in different wards of the hospital participated in this study and answered the three-part questionnaire containing demographic and job information, stress resulted by covid-19 and job performance. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS software, version 20. There were used the descriptive and analytical statistics including frequency, mean, standard deviation and t test.

Results: Most of the participants in this study were women (68%) under the age of 30 (59.4%). There is a significant relationship between the effect of Covid-19 on job stress and job performance. Thus, the effect of Covid-19 on job stress is direct, i.e. with the greater effect of Covid-19, the amount of stress increases by 39% ) p = 0.00, r = 0.39(. The effect of Covid-19 on the job performance was inversely so that with increasing the effect of Covid-19, job performance decreased by -20% (-r= 0.20, p=0.01). The findings showed there is a significant relationship between stress resulted by Covid-19 and the job performance.

Discussion: The level of stress in nurses working in Covid-19-related wards in Zahedan teaching hospitals is moderate. It seems that paying attention to nurses' education to deal with critical situations similar to Covid-19 and increasing personal protective equipment can be effective in preventing nurses from developing stress and anxiety, and then their job performance will be improved.

Keywords: Nurses, Covid-19, Job stress, Job performance