Objective To explore the effect of pain nursing intervention in patients with postherpetic neuralgia. Methods A total of 80 patients with postherpetic neuralgia admitted to our hospital from January 2022 to December 2023 were selected as the research objects. They were divided into control group and experimental group by random number table method, with 40 patients in each group. The control group received routine nursing, and the experimental group received pain nursing. The psychological status, pain, quality of life, nursing satisfaction and nursing compliance of the two groups were compared. Results The scores of SAS and SDS in the experimental group after nursing were lower than those in the control group (P <0.05). The VAS score of the experimental group after nursing was lower than that of the control group (P <0.05). The scores of each dimension of quality of life in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group (P <0.05). The nursing satisfaction of the experimental group was 97.50%, which was higher than 80.00% of the control group (P <0.05). The nursing compliance of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group (P <0.05). Conclusion The implementation of pain nursing in patients with postherpetic neuralgia is helpful to improve the psychological state, pain degree and quality of life of patients, and then improve the nursing satisfaction of patients, which is worthy of clinical application.