question: A novel coronavirus pneumonia broke out and gradually developed into a global public health problem. Health care workers, especially nurses, suffered from great occupational pressure and psychological distress during the outbreak of infectious diseases. We performed a cross-sectional survey to investigate the psychological status and self-efficacy of nurses in public hospital during COVID-19 outbreak between 16th and 25th February 2020. A total of 223 nurses participated in this study. The prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms was 40.8% (CI 95%: 34.4%-47.2%) and 26.4% (CI 95%: 20.6%-42.2%), respectively. There was no difference in the prevalence of anxiety symptoms among demographic variables. There was significant differences in the prevalence of depression symptoms according to professional titles (P = .020). The mean score of self-efficacy was 25.90 ± 7.55. The self-efficacy was negatively correlated with anxiety (r = -0.161, P < .05). The psychological status of nurses in public hospital during COVID-19 outbreak needs our attention. Improving nurses' self-efficacy in dealing with emerging infectious diseases may be helpful to their psychology.