Objective The statistics of nursing management zero-cited papers published in 12 nursing core journals were analyzed, and the reasons were analyzed to provide reference for further improvement of the academic quality of nursing management class papers and reducing zero cited rate. Methods The nursing management zero-cited papers published in 12 nursing core journals from 2015 to 2017 were searched in Wanfang Database, and the amount of documents issued, funded status, number of authors, academic qualifications and titles, and themes were analyzed. Results There were 2 492 articles of zero cited papers of nursing management during 2015-2017, accounted for 46.65% of the total number of nursing management thesis, among which there were 1 172 papers of zero cited papers and 1 320 papers of non-funds, which showed an increasing trend year by year. The lowest cited rate was 33.67% in the Chinese Journal of Nursing.The zero cited fund of nursing management was the most subsidized by provincial (municipality) level, accounted for 42.83%.The zero cited rates of qualitative research, survey research and application statistical description were the highest, which were 51.44%, 50.87% and 47.03%. More than 70% of the zero cited papers are divided into 4 aspects: nursing human resource management, nursing quality management, nursing management mode and management psychology research. Nursing human resource management was more concerned with the training of nurses, core competencies, job management, job stress, and job satisfaction. The research content of nursing quality management focused on quality control circle, nursing quality assessment, continuous quality improvement, and adverse event management. Conclusions The zero cited rate of nursing management papers is high, suggesting that the training of nursing management personnel's scientific research ability should be strengthened, so that they can grasp the hot spots or focus issues in the field of nursing management to select topics and promote the clinical application of nursing management results. Key words: Nursing management; Zero cited papers; Core journals; Human resources; Quality management