Abstract: Objective: To investigate the current practices of delirium assessment and analyze the perceived barriers among ICU nurses, and to provide reference to improve delirium assessment in ICU. Methods: A questionnaire survey was implemented among 256 ICU nurses in one hospital in Sichuan province. Results: 94.9% nurses had the experiences of caring delirium patients in ICU. Preferred methods for assessing delirium included clinical experience (80.5%), delirium assessment tools (14.5%), and psychiatric consultation (5.0%). The top three perceived barriers were difficulties in assessing intubated patients, assessing sedative patients and lack of delirium assessment knowledge. Nurses who assessed by clinical experience, who had never received related educations and who thought they had insufficient knowledge, had higher scores of barriers.Conclusion: The current practices of ICU delirium assessment were unsatisfying, and the main barriers were lack of skills and knowledge.