Objective To explore discharge planning competence in surgical charge nurses, and to analyze its categories and population characteristics.Methods A total of 516 surgical charge nurses from three tertiary hospitals were selected using convenience sampling method, then they were investigated by using a general information questionnaire, the Discharge Planning of Ward Nurses (DPWN), the General Self-efficacy Scale(GSES), and the Professional Identity Scale (PIS), their discharge planning competence was analyzed through latent profile analysis, and the influencing factors of each category were identified by utilizing univariate analysis and logistic regression analysis.Results Discharge planning competence of surgical charge nurses was divided into three ca-tegories:a low competence group (24.23%), a medium competence group (49.22%), and a high competence-consensus group (26.55%).Logistic regression analysis showed that, age, years of working experience, educational background, whether they had attended discharge planning training, self-efficacy, and professional identity of surgical charge nurses were influencing factors of their potential profile categories of discharge planning competence (all P＜0.05).Conclusion The discharge planning competence in surgical charge nurses exhibits heterogeneity.Nursing managers can take individualized interventions for surgical charge nurses based on the influencing factors of different categories, so as to improve their overall discharge planning competence.