Abstract: Objective sTo evaluate the impact of nursing intervention on sputum specimen quality of tuberculosis (TB) patients, and to explore new nursing intervention methods to improve the sputum specimen quality.Methods A total of 1105 TB suspects or patients were registered in the Guangzhou Chest-Disease Hospital or Guangdong TB Control Center from Dec.2011 to Jan. 2013. According to the visit number, the subjects were divided into study and control groups randomly. 496 patients in control group collected the sputum specimen by themselves and 609 patients in study group were trained how to collect the sputum specimen by the nurses. The quality of sputum specimens and the detection rate of Mycobacterium tuberculosis were compared.Results There were 412 qualified sputum specimens in control group and the qualification rate was 83.1% (412/496), 130 positive sputum specimens were detected and the positive detection rate was 26.2%. In study group there were 579 qualified sputum specimens and the qualification rate was 95.1% (579/609), 207 positive sputum specimens were detected and the positive detection rate was 34.0%. There were significant difference between the two groups in sputum specimen qualification rate and the positive detection rate (χ²=42.6 and 7.81, P<0.01). The AFB (+) proportion was 19.2% (25/130) and 29.0% (29/207) respectively between control group and study group, and that of the control group was lower than the study group (χ²=4.03, P<0.05).Conclusion The nursing intervention can improve the quality of sputum specimen of TB patients and the positive detection rate can be improved as well. The nursing intervention can especially improve the positive detection rate of those with light lesion and little discharge of bacteria, and can reduce the misdiagnosis of smear positive TB cases.