Objective To investigate the status quo of nursing lack in level three first-class hospitals of Zhongshan city,and analyze the relevant reasons.Methods A sample of 765 nurses in 4 tertiary general hospitals completed the modified Missed Nursing Care Survey.Results Assessment,planning,intervention and evaluation were reported to be missed by 9.86％～39.04％,12.05％～44.38％,3.29％～46.85％ and 12.19％～22.05％ of the survey respondents respectively.Reasons for missed care were lack of labor resources(85.48％～93.84％),lack of material resources(80.00％～80.96％),low efficiency of the team (78.08％～86.58％),poor work habits (70.95％～83.84％),and improvement of patients’ needs (88.90％～93.01％).Conclusions Lack of care is widespread,and the degree of lack of each link is different.Reasons lead to the lack of care of nursing staff are higher patients’ demands to nursing work,shortage of nursing staff and unplanned surge of patients’ number.