Background: The shortage of nurses is a very tricky and common phenomenon, which is closely related to the education and nursing practice environment. However, there are few studies on the perception of the practice environment from the perspective of nurses, and it is more meaningful to study their views and make suggestions for nursing leaders.

Aim: The aim of the study was to describe the registered nurses' perceptions of the practice environment.

Method: A quantitative cross-sectional and descriptive survey was designed. The Practice Environment Questionnaire (PEQ) used to investigate the nurses’ perception of the practice environment. 100 registered nurses completed the questionnaire. And SPSS (23.0) was used to analysis data.

Result: The total score of PEQ was 0-95 in our study, the mean score was 69.73 for the total questionnaire. From the dimension, the mean score of each item in human resources was 3.35, quality management was 3.76, medical allocation was 3.44 and colleague relationship was 3.80.  And the difference in individual perception is different with the years of nursing experience and shift.

Conclusions: Nurses had lowest perception of human resources while the perception of colleague relationships was the highest in the practice environment. In addition, with the increase of nursing experience years, the perception of human resources, colleague relationship and quality management increased, while the score of medical allocation became lower.