Background Negative effects of mobile phone addiction on undergraduate students have led to several health problems including depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, cognitive impairment and sleep disturbance. The undergraduate nursing students serve as an important reserve force of the clinical nursing work, and their poor psychological health would have a nonignorable impact on the quality of the nursing work and the nurse-patient relationship in the future. Objective To investigate the relation between neuroticism and tendency of mobile phone addiction among undergraduate nursing students, and to examine the pathways through which perceived stress and self-control play a role in the relation by constructing a chain-mediated model. Methods From February to March 2023, a total of 900 undergraduate nursing students across 10 universities in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province were selected through convenient sampling method. Several scales were adopted to assess undergraduate nursing students respectively, including the neuroticism subscale of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Short Scale for Chines (EPQ-RSC), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Self-Control Scale (SCS) and Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS). The assessment were conducted on multiple aspects of these students including neurotic personality, subjective stress, self-control and mobile phone addiction tendency. Model 6 in the SPSS Macro Process 4. 1 was used to examine the mediating effect of perceived stress and selfcontrol between neuroticism and mobile phone addiction tendency among undergraduate nursing students. Results ① Among the 900 students,314 cases (34. 89%) were found to be addicted to mobile phones. ② The score of neuroticism subscale in EPQ-RSC of nursing undergraduates was positively correlated with the total scores of PSS and MPATS (r=0. 400,0. 287,P<0. 01), and negatively correlated with score of SCS (r=-0. 364,P<0. 01). The total score of MPATS was positively correlated with the total score of PSS (r=0. 362,P<0. 01), and negatively correlated with the total score of SCS (r=-0. 468,P<0. 01). The total score of SCS was negatively correlated with the total score of PSS (r=-0. 515,P<0. 01). ③ Perceived stress and self-control performed partial mediation between neuroticism personality and mobile phone addiction tendency (with indirect effect values of 0. 056 and 0. 065, respectively, accounting for 19. 72% and 22. 89% of the total effect). Perceived stress and self-control played a chain mediating role between neuroticism personality and mobile phone addiction tendency (with an indirect effect value of 0. 064, accounting for 22. 54% of the total effect). Conclusion Neuroticism personality, perceived stress and self-control are confirmed to play important roles in mobile phone addiction tendency among undergraduate nursing students. Neuroticism personality not only directly affects the tendency of mobile phone addiction, but also affects their mobile phone addiction tendency through the chain mediating effect of perceived stress and self-control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]