Objective We sought to learn the cognition and attitude of doctors,nurses,patients and patients' family members for male nurses and compare the differences in nursing skills between men and women in order to provide basic information and a basis for further improving the quality of hospital care and promote the comprehensive development of nursing disciplines.Methods Some doctors,female nurses,patients and their family members of patients from the five top hospitals were randomly selected as research subjects to investigate the cognitive attitudes towards male nurses.50 male nurses from the five top hospitals were randomly selected,then 50 female nurses with the same academic level and specialty were selected as the control group,and nursing skills were compared between the two groups.Results This study investigated a total of 304 doctors,522 female nurses,258 patients,176 patients' family members.The cognition attitude to male nurses by doctors,female nurses,patients and their families showed statistically significant differences.Emergency department,operating room,intensive care unit were four departments which were considered to be in great need of male nurses.The differences were statistically significant between men and women nurses in scores of aseptic technique,intravenous infusion operation,suction operation,single unarmed CPR skills.Pearson correlation analysis was conducted between education,working years and scores and total score of four operation skills,the results showed that working life was correlated with aseptic technique score of female nurses,the correlation coefficient was 0.409,the scores of the remaining skills did not showed correlation with education and working years yet.Conclusions Doctors,female nurses,patients and patients' families showed a certain degree of acceptance and positive attitude to male nurses.Male nurses showed advantages in the emergency department,operating room,intensive care unit and other nursing post.Male and female nurses demonstrated the same level of basic nursing skills.