BACKGROUND: Treatment burden is a significant barrier to patient adherence that may lead to deterioration of health. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to understand the treatment burden of Chinese patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and its associations with demographic, capacity, and workload-related factors. METHODS: We conducted an observational cross-sectional study. We recruited 396 patients with CHD in a tertiary hospital in Shandong Province, China. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure patients' sociodemographic information, clinical information, treatment burden, health literacy, illness perception, and chronic illness resources. Descriptive statistics and t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson's correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were used for data analysis. RESULTS: A total of 396 participants were included, of whom 273 were male (68.9 %) and 123 were female (31.1 %). The mean age of the participants was 63.10 ± 9.75. The predictors for treatment burden included smoking, taking ≥ 6 kinds of medications/day, health literacy, illness perception, and chronic illness resources, which explained 50.9 % of the variance (p <
0.05). CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate an association between treatment burden and factors such as smoking, taking ≥ 6 kinds of medications/day, health literacy, illness perception, and chronic illness resource survey. Healthcare staff should develop targeted interventions based on relevant factors and optimize treatment strategies to improve patient adherence.