What is known on the subject?• Because of increasingly stressful, dangerous and unpredictable psychiatric nursing work, psychiatric nurses have experienced higher job stress than general ward nurses.• Little is known about the factors that affect the turnover intention of Chinese psychiatric nurses. Understanding the influencing factors of nurses' turnover intention will help to formulate targeted measures to stabilize psychiatric nursing teams. What does this paper add to existing knowledge?• The results showed that 70.2% of psychiatric nurses had higher turnover intention. The strong turnover intention of Chinese psychiatric nurses is a problem that needs to be considered by managers.• The results showed that having more children, between 31 and 39 years old, and having a part-time job were strongly associated with turnover intention. In addition, "job stress" was also an important factor, psychiatric nurses' turnover intention decreased as their job stress level decreased. What are the implications for practice?• Nursing managers should pay attention to nurses who have more children, between 31 and 39 years old, and take on part-time jobs. Additionally, nursing managers should reduce job stress and implement targeted programmes to prevent psychiatric nurses' turnover.• Experience-sharing meetings and mindfulness-based stress reduction training are also useful to improve the mental health status of psychiatric nurses with great job stress. Nursing managers should arrange human resources and shifts appropriately to give nurses with more children more time with their families.Provide more development opportunities for psychiatric nurses between 31 and 39 years old. Managers explore the reasons why nurses take on part-time jobs and take targeted interventions (such as increasing income) to reduce the behaviour that happens.