Objective To develop a Nursing Risk Assessment Questionnaire for Clinical Departments, and to test its reliability and validity. Methods Guided by set pair analysis theory, a preliminary questionnaire was formulated through literature review, group discussion and expert consultation. Then a total of 349 nurses in a tertiary hospital in Wuhan were selected for investigation to examine the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Results The Nursing Risk Assessment Questionnaire for Clinical Departments consisted of 4 dimensions and 52 items.Exploratory factor analysis identified four principal factors, which explained 50.302% of total variance. The scale-level content validity index was 0.980, and the item-level content validity index ranged from 0.850 to 1.000. Cronbach′s α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.945, the split half reliability was 0.903, and the test-retest reliability was 0.831. Conclusion The questionnaire enjoys good reliability and validity, and it can be used to evaluate nursing risk in clinical departments.