Objective To investigate the level of psychological distress among nurses who are from other provinces and engaged inassisting to combat the COVID-19 in Wuhan, to analyze its influencing factors and to provide reference for comprehensive psychological intervention. Methods Totally 216 nurses, who come from other provinces and assist to rescue in Wuhan for the COVID-19 outbreak, were surveyed by using the Distress Management Screening Measure (DMSM). Results The DMSM score averaged4.42±2.15 and 40.74% of the nurses had significant psychological distress, with emotional problems being the most common. Gender and emergency rescue experience were the influencing factors of psychological distress in the samples (P＜0.01 for both). Conclusion The level of psychological distress among nurses who support in Wuhan to combat the COVID-19 outbreak was high at the early stage. It′s necessary to strengthen organizational support to alleviate nurses′ psychological distress, especially for those who are female and who lack experience of emergency rescue.