Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigation of the effects of time to ambulation on patient outcomes, anxiety and depression. Method: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study was conducted on 157 patients in the general surgery clinic of a training and research hospital in western Turkey. The data were collected using a Descriptive Form, Patient Outcomes Follow-up Form, Brief Pain Inventory, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and analysed by number, percentage, Mann–Whitney U test, Spearman correlation method using the Statistical Package for Social Science software version 24. Results: The mean age of the patients who participated in the study was 49.5±18.1 years. The mean time to ambulation of the patients was 12.45±9.07 hours. The mean pain level of the participants in the last 24 hours, mean HADS-anxiety score and mean HADS-depression score were 3.7±1.7, 4.0±2.6 and 4.4±3.0, respectively. Conclusions: In our study, we found that the time to ambulation was increased as the patients' age, duration of anaesthesia and depression scores increased. Additionally, the ambulation of patients with drains and catheters delayed. Furthermore, it was found that the duration of hospitalisation increased with the increase in the time to ambulation of patients.