Objective To explore the relationship between health-promoting lifestyle and work engagement in nurses of traditional Chinese medicine hospitals. Methods Totally 527 nurses from 3A level hospitals of the first, second, third affiliated to Zhejiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine were investigated by the Chinese revision of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Scale, Chinese version of Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Results M ultiple regression analysis showed that nurse health-promoting lifestyle had a significant correlation with work engagement, F = 8.987, P < 0.01. Among them, the self-realization dimension to the nurse work engagement most affected, t = 3.287, P < 0.01. Conclusions Improving nurses′health-promoting lifestyle can raise the level of work engagement and stabilize nursing staff and improve quality of care in traditional Chinese medicine hospitals.