Objective To explore the effect of an emotion management course on self- management ability of medical graduate students, and to inform the further development of emotional self-adjustment strategies for graduate students in universities. Methods This is a mixed-methods research. From October to November 2022, a group of medical graduate students were enrolled in this study, who took the course of ″Emotion Management for Graduate students″, carried out in six 120-minute sessions. Before and after the intervention, the effects of curriculum intervention were quantitatively evaluated by self-designed teaching questionnaire, Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS), Berkeley Emotional Expression Scale (BEQ) and self-designed emotional management literacy Scale, and qualitative evaluation was carried out by focus group interview. Results The total score of emotion management literacy scale of 48 medical graduate students who participated in the whole course intervention was significantly different before and after the intervention [(72.94±18.69) vs. (107.65±11.79), P<0.001]. The dimensions of the EIS scale in identifying other people′s emotions [(23.65±2.18) vs. (24.44±1.83), P<0.05], emotional utilization [(28.98±2.63) vs. (29.92±3.26), P<0.05] and the negative emotion expression dimension of BEQ scale [(17.52±3.49) vs. (18.46±3.31), P<0.05] were statistically significant. Three themes were identified from the focus group interviews: (1) Changes in emotional perception; (2) Emotional cognitive adjustment; (3) Emotional self-regulation. Conclusions The emotion management course has a positive effect on the improvement of self-emotion management ability of medical graduate students. Medical colleges can further improve the emotion recognition, utilization and expression of students by offering relevant courses, in order to promote their overall improvement of self-emotion management ability.