Abstract: OBJECTIVE To explore the effect of evidence-based nursing on prevention of nosocomial infection in surgery departments. METHODS A total of 497 patients who received surgical procedures in general surgery department from Sep 2014 to Mar 2015 were chosen as the control group, and 526 patients who received surgical procedures in general surgery department from Apr 2015 to Oct 2015 were set as the observation group.The control group was given conventional nursing, while the observation group was given nursing based on the nosocomial infection criteria and evidence-based nursing principles.The incidence of nosocomial infections and length of hospital stay were observed and compared between the two groups of patients. RESULTS After the clinical nursing interventions were taken, the nosocomial infections occurred in 64 of 497 patients in the control group, with the infection rate 12.88%; the nosocomial infections occurred in 41 of 526 patients in the observation group, with the infection rate 7.79%, the incidence of nosocomial infections of the observation group was significantly lower than that of the control group(P＜0.05).The length of hospital stay of the observation group was (10.20±4.3)days, significantly shorter than (15.13±3.7) days of the control group(P＜0.05). CONCLUSION The nursing measures that are developed based on the evidence-based medicine can achieve significant effect on prevention and control of the nosocomial infections.