Objective To explore the effects of behavioral activation (BA) intervention on patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) complicated with anxiety and depression. Methods Totally 70 patients with COPD complicated with anxiety and depression who were hospitalized in a ClassⅢ Grade A hospital from August 2018 to April 2019 were selected using convenient sampling and divided into experimental (n=35) and control (n=35) groups according to the time of admission. Patients in the control group received conventional hospital care and psychological guidance in the Department of Respiratory Medicine, while patients in the experimental group received BA intervention on this basis. Anxiety, depression and fatigue scores were compared between the two groups. Results A total of 33 patients in control group and 32 patient in experimental group completed the study. After BA intervention, the anxiety and depression scores of the experimental group were lower than those of the control group, and there were statistically significant differences between the two groups (P＜0.05). The total score of multi-dimensional fatigue scale of COPD patients in the experimental group was lower than that of the control group, the difference was statistically (P＜ 0.05), and there was no statistically significant difference in the score of mental fatigue between the two groups (P＞0.05). Conclusions BA intervention can ameliorate the anxiety and depression in patients and reduce their sense of fatigue, thus improving their quality of life.