Aims.To systematically review qualitative research that explores the emotions of nurses upon workplace violence.Methods.Four English and two Chinese electronic databases were searched for published qualitative research (2000-2015) on nurses' experience upon workplace violence.A meta-synthesis is conducted to integrate the findings of qualitative studies.Eleven eligible studies are scrutinized, themes are extracted and compared across studies, and core themes are identified.Results.Five themes are identified from synthesizing these included articles.The themes are: psychological crisis, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, job burnout, need of support and rationalization.These themes are related to several sub-themes to refine nurses' perceptions and experience of emotions upon workplace violence.In the findings, the content of sub-themes shows consistencies as well as incongruities.Conclusions.Nurses will undergo a variety of emotions upon workplace violence.Most of them are negative while the others might bring active effects to them.Therefore, society, patients and policy makers should attach more importance to nurses' experience after sustaining workplace violence, and relevant further studies are required on education, mental accommodation of nurses as well as leaders' management strategies of prevention and settlement for workplace violence.