Objective To explore the effect of team-based learning (TBL) on the safety training of clinical nurses in intravenous therapy. Methods Experimental control method was used. In May 2018, 8 medical institutions registered in Xining city were selected and randomly divided into experimental group and control group.Totally 119 nurses in the experimental group took TBL teaching, 120 nurses in the control group took traditional teaching. Before and after the training, questionnaires were used to investigate the quality of intravenous treatment of the two groups of nurses, as well as the evaluation of the training effect. Results After training, the score of venous treatment literacy in the experimental group was [55 (49,58)] and that in the control group was [45 (41,53)], the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01).In the experimental group, 96.6% (115 / 119) of the nurses thought that TBL teaching could improve their thinking enthusiasm and ability, 90.8% (108 / 119) of the nurses thought that TBL teaching could improve their team spirit and ability, 89.1% (106 / 119) of the nurses thought that TBL teaching could significantly improve their ability to solve clinical problems, 98.3% (117 / 119) of the nurses were satisfied with the training teachers, 94.1% (112 / 119) of the nurses were satisfied with the training form.The above five aspects are better than the control group, the difference was statistically significant (all P < 0.05). Conclusions TBL can improve the quality level of clinical nurses in intravenous therapy, improve their thinking enthusiasm and ability, enhance their team spirit, improve their ability to solve clinical problems and training satisfaction, which is suitable for promotion in clinical nurse training.