Objective To establish a set of scientific and systematic evaluation indexes of core competence for nursing assistants and to provide references for the training, assessment and ability evaluation of nursing assistants. Methods The draft evaluation index of the core competence for nursing assistants was formed through literature review and semi-structured interview. From September to November 2022, 20 experts from 7 provinces were consulted by Delphi method, and the weights of indicators at all levels were determined by analytic hierarchy process. Results Two rounds of expert consultations were conducted,and the effective recovery rates were 100.00% and 95.24%, respectively;the expert authority coefficient was 0.929,and the Kendall concordant coefficient of the second round was 0.230(P<0.05). Finally,4 first-level indicators including theoretical knowledge, practical skills, comprehensive ability and humanistic traits, 13 second-level indicators and 50 third-level indicators were constructed. Conclusion The core competence evaluation index for nursing assistants reaches consensus from experts and enjoys high credibility, which can provide references for the training, assessment and ability evaluation of nursing assistants.