Objective To investigate the status of grief counseling among front-line nurses in Wuhan during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, so as to provide reference for formulating reasonable nursing management strategies. Methods A total of 225 front-line nurses were investigated with a basic information questionnaire and attitudes and skills of grief counseling scales. Results A total of 214 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective rate of 95.1%. The score of grief counseling attitudes of nurses was 32.80±9.41, which was in the middle level. Other grief counseling skills, communication ability, whether they had received relevant training, and frequency of contacting bereaved family members had significant impacts on nurses' grief counseling attitudes (P＜0.05). The score of grief counseling skills was 19.24±4.10, which was in the lower middle level. Grief counseling, frequency of contacting bereaved family members, grief counseling training, and education background had significant impacts on nurses' grief counseling skills (P＜0.05). Conclusion During the COVID-19 epidemic, there have been room for improvement in grief counseling for bereaved family members among nurses in Wuhan. It is suggested to set up a grief counseling nursing group and establish a long-term and sound training framework. © 2020 Second Military Medical University Press. All rights reserved.