Objective To investigate the nurses ’ occupational commitment and intent to stay in hospitals and to analyze the correlation between them .Methods Totals of 469 subjects in 5 three level of first-class hospitals of Harbin city were obtained by using convenience sampling method .Research instruments used in this study had three parts , including demographic questionnaire , Nurses Occupational Commitment questionnaire and Intent to Stay Scale .Results The average score of nurses ’ occupational commitment was (72.46 ±12.76), and the average score of nurses ’ intent to stay was (14.39 ±3.35).Pearson analysis showed that intent to stay was positively correlated with occupational commitment and its five subscales such as affective commitment, normative commitment, emotional cost, economic cost, and chance commitment ( r =0.528,0.504,0.412,0.337,0.381,0.324, respectively;P<0.01).The predictors of intent to stay of nurses were age , education level and emotional commitment .Conclusions In order to stabilize nursing staff and reduce their turnover intention , administrators should issue and implement some interventions to increase occupational commitment and decrease their perceived job stress .