Objective To investigate the effects of role play as a nurse before surgery in children with ventricular septal defect. Methods A convenience sampling was used to recruit 82 children who underwent catheter interventional closure of perimembrane ventricular septal defect from July 2019 to December 2020 as the experimental group. On the basis of routine preoperative education,every 2 children were divided into 1 group for nurse role playing. The process of postoperative lower limb fixation and wound compression was simulated during the role play. Another 79 children were enrolled as the control group from January 2018 to June 2019 and routine preoperative education was provided. The postoperative agitation score and incidence of vascular complications were compared between the two groups. Results There were interaction effects between groups and time of agitation evaluation（F=20.326,P<0.001）. Simple effect analysis showed that the agitation score of children in the interventional group was lower than that of children in the control group when leaving the recovery room,1h and 2h after the surgery（P<0.05）. There was no statistically significant difference in the agitation score of the two groups at 3h after surgery（P>0.05）. There was no significant differences in the incidence of wound oozing,hematoma,arteriovenous fistula and pseudoaneurysm in the two groups（P>0.05）. Conclusion Children with ventricular septal defect should play the role of nurse before surgery,which can effectively reduce the irritability of children.