Objective To explore the latent categorical characteristics of pain care needs in patients after the thoracoscopic lung cancer resection and analyze the differences in the characteristics of different categories of lung cancer patients.Methods A total of 276 patients who underwent thoracoscopic lung cancer resection were conveniently sampled.General information questionnaires, Numeric Rating Scales (NRS), Pain Catastrophizing Scales (PCS), and Pain Care Needs Questionnaire were used to survey the patients on the 3rd postoperative day.The latent categories of pain care needs of the patients were analyzed, and the influencing factors of the potential categories were explored.Results Pain care needs of patients after thoracoscopic lung cancer resection could be divided into three potential categories, which were high-level needs group (73.9%), moderate-level needs group (19.9%), and low level-high social needs group (6.2%).Disordered multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that pain intensity, gender, number of chest drainage tubes, and level of pain catastrophizing were influencing factors for potential categories of pain care needs (all P＜0.05).Conclusion Pain care needs after lung cancer resection exhibit group heterogeneity.Clinical nurses should develop different pain management plans based on the influencing factors of different categories.