Objective:To understand the real experiences of scientific research anxiety among nurses in tertiary hospitals, for references for improving the research capabilities of clinical nurses and formulating corresponding training and management strategies.Methods:From January to June 2023, this study adopted the phenomenological research method in qualitative research, and used the purposive sampling method to select 15 clinical nurses from two tertiary hospitals for semi-structured interviews. The seven-step analysis method was used to extract the theme of nurses′ experiences of scientific research anxiety.Results:A total of 337 minutes of interviews were conducted, with over 80 000 words transcribed. After analysis, four themes were formed, including the manifestations of clinical nurses′ research anxiety(imbalance between work and family life, negative emotions caused by anxiety, positive effects of moderate anxiety), individual reasons(research motivation and self doubt, challenges in time management and resource allocation), external reasons(fast iteration and updating of research methods, research pressure caused by career development, multidimensional support resources to overcome research anxiety), and adjustment strategies(nurses′ own internal drive and insensitivity, multidimensional support resources to overcome research anxiety).Conclusions:Most clinical nurses attached great importance to nursing research and were eager to receive more research support and assistance; The research anxiety of clinical nurses was influenced by multiple factors such as research motivation, time management, iterative updates of research methods, and research support systems. It was recommended that hospital managers actively support clinical nurses to participate in scientific research activities, establish a sound scientific research management system, in order to enhance nurses′ scientific research capabilities.