AIM: This study aimed to test whether increasing psychological capital through psychological capital interventions affects anxiety and innovation among nursing staff through an experimental study. METHOD: This study utilized a two-group (experimental and wait-list control) pre-test and post-test design. In August 2022, eighty clinical nurses from the same hospital were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (40) or the wait-list control group (40) to complete self-report questionnaires at pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2), and one month post-intervention (T3). The experimental group received a 6-week training on the psychological capital intervention. RESULT: The scores of anxiety, psychological capital, and innovative behaviour of experimental subjects in the two groups before and after the intervention showed no significant difference in between-group effects (P >
0.05). In contrast, the time effect and between-group × time effect were significant (P <
0.05), and the trends of anxiety, psychological capital and innovative behaviour over time differed between the two groups of nurses. CONCLUSION: Online psychological capital interventions can weaken the constraints of time and space to maximize the effective development of nursing staff's psychological capital, reduce anxiety, and improve nurses' innovative behaviors.