Objective To translate the Empathic Communication Coding System （ECCS） into simplified Chinese, and apply in neonatal intensive care unit to understand the pattern of nurse-patient empathic communication.Methods We translated the ECCS into simplified Chinese, then recorded the interactions between nurse and parent in the NICU patient encounters, and identified empa-thic opportunities created by the parent and response patterns of the neonatal nurse to these opportunities by using ECCS-C. Results The encounters between 32 neonatal nurses and 78 parents were recorded, and 91 empathic opportunities-response sequences were identified. Parents most frequently expressed statement of challenge （38.5%） and emotion （29.7%）, followed by indirect (20.9%), progress (6.6%), and nurse-elicited (4.4%). Neonatal nurse response to the empathic opportunity was implicated re-cognition （27.5%）, acknowledgement without further inquiry （23.1%） and rejection （16.5%）.Parent′s statement of emotion received higher level of empathic response from the nurse than the other types. Conclusion The ECCS-C could be utilized to explore the pattern of nurse-parent empathic communication, and provide reference for empathy training.