The purpose of this study was to investigate the reality, status of clinical nurses' emotional labor and the relationship with physical discomfort, burnout, depression and social support. A thousand three hundred sixteen clinical nurses from 42 hospitals nationwide participated in this study. Questionnaires were developed for evaluating the reality and status of emotional labor of clinical nurses after interviewing focus groups and reviewing literatures. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient. Ninety eight percent of nurses had answered having emotional labor and they experienced 82 times per year, 9.6 times during last a month which means they experience it every other day. The one who provoke emotional labor were patients, guardians, physicians, supervisor, and colleagues in sequence. Eighty percent of nurses had intention to leave their jobs after experiencing emotional labor. They were doing more surface acting than deep acting of emotional labor. Clinical nurses in Korea experienced excessively high level of emotional labor and delayed responding to clients' requests due to lack of time for caring each patient was revealed as one of the main causes of emotional labor.