This study aimed to provide reference for improving the management of nursing professional attitude and nursing service quality by investigating the status of explanation service of nursing staff. Nurses and patients from 8 tertiary public hospitals among Nanjing and southern, central and northern Jiangsu Province were surveyed about the significance, difficult, initiative, deciding factor and attitude of nursing explanation service. The results showed that the greatest difficulties encountered by both nurses and patients in interpretation were different (P<0.001). There were also great differences in the feelings in terms of expression of interpretation of the nurse?patient (P<0.001). However, there was no significant difference between departments. There were great differences in the significance, initiative and the language skills of the explanation. Nursing staff have some initiative in the interpretation, but responsibility should be further improved and they cannot be detailed and specific. The complexity of medical problems and the lack of knowledge of patients are the important reasons for the difficulties in interpretation. Nursing staff lack of cognition of the language skills and the air of the interpretation. It was suggested to thinking the way of other between nurses and patients, improving the quality of nursing staff, stressing the importance of interpretation and optimizing management mechanism.