Abstract: Objective To explore the difference between the nursing needs of burn patients and nurses′ cognition in order to adjust the nursing service behavior and improve the nursing quality. Methods The convenience sampling method was adopted to select 400 burn inpatients admitted to the Department of Burns of the 180th Hospital of the People′s Liberation Army from January to September 2017, and 38 nurses from the same department were selected by cluster sampling method. On the day of or the day before hospital discharge after instruction to discharging patients, the self-designed questionnaire was adopted to investigate the nursing needs of patients during hospitalization. The cognitive differences between patients and nurses in the overall level and specific dimensions of nursing needs were compared, and items of the nursing needs of patients which were higher than the cognition of nurses with statistically significant differences were recorded. The five most important nursing needs items considered by both patients and nurses were recorded and compared. Data were processed with independent sample t test. Results The effective recovery rates of questionnaire for patients and nurses were 94.8% (379/400) and 100.0% (38/38), respectively. The total score of patients′ nursing needs was (3.9±0.4) points, which was similar to (4.1±0.5) points of nurses′ cognition of patients′ nursing needs (t=1.611, P>0.05). The scores of patients′ physiological needs and self-esteem needs dimensions were (4.0±0.6) and (3.9±0.6) points, respectively, significantly lower than (4.2±0.4) and (4.3±0.5) points of nurses (t=-2.476, -4.160, P<0.05 or P<0.01). The scores of patients′ safety needs, love and belonging needs, and self-realization needs dimensions were similar to those of nurses (t=0.228, 1.356, -1.010, P>0.05). The scores of the patients in nursing needs items of the introduction of patients in the same room, medical staff accompanying them during the examination, leisure and recreational activities, the theoretical and technical proficiency of nurses, the guidance of anti-scar exercise, and the propaganda of drug knowledge were respectively (4.2±0.9), (3.3±1.2), (4.2±0.9), (4.5±0.7), (4.2±0.9), and (4.0±1.0) points, significantly higher than (3.5±0.9), (2.7±1.0), (3.5±1.3), (4.1±0.8), (3.8±1.0), and (3.6±0.9) points of the nurses (t=4.147, 3.515, 3.374, 3.282, 2.546, 2.265, P<0.05 or P<0.01). The five most important items for patients and nurses were pain nursing, the theoretical and technical proficiency of nurses, treating patients equally, instruction to discharging patients, timely visiting wards and privacy protection, pain nursing, introduction of medical staff, introduction of safety issues, getting the daily expenses listing, respectively. Only pain nursing was the same between patients and nurses. Conclusions There are some differences between burn patients and nurses in the dimensions and items of nursing needs and the most important items of nursing needs. Nursing staff should focus on improving the nursing service items with insufficient cognition, adjusting the service supply, meeting the reasonable needs of patients, and improving the nursing satisfaction of patients.