Article 24 of the Nurses Law states that teaching nursing and counseling patients are responsibilities of nurses. Therefore, in clinical practice, nurses often educate patients, which is a crucial indicator that affects the quality of care and patient outcomes. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the teaching competence and the factors influencing motivation of nurses to teach patients. The results can be used as a reference for improving the teaching competence of nurses in the future. The structured Patient Education Competence Scale for Registered Nurses (PECS-RN) was used to investigate self-evaluation of teaching competence. The results showed that the average self-evaluation teaching competence of nurses was 4.63 ± 1.44 (1-7 scale), and the average scores of preparation and implementation of teaching were 4.57 ± 1.44 and 4.69 ± 1.48, respectively. All three scores denote a moderate teaching competence. The results showed that nurses achieved high scores in the professional ability to solve the problems of the patients, positive attitude during teaching, feedback on learning status, and evaluation of learning effects in a timely manner. Areas judged to be deficient included teaching learners in a suitable and undisturbed environment, preteaching assessment, setting learning objectives based on individual requirements and problems, and the application of teaching techniques such as empowerment. In the future, nurse training should aim to enhance the abilities of nurses' preteaching assessment and preparation, teaching skills, teaching activities, and evaluation results. The seniority, age, competency, education, and teaching ability of nurses are considerably positively related; the teaching ability of a trained and married counselor is superior to that of an unmarried counselor with no training. These enhancements would improve the competency of nurses in clinical teaching and counseling, thereby improving patient safety, patient satisfaction, quality of life, and health outcomes.