Background <p>Nursing students are particularly susceptible to workplace violence. However, there is limited research on the management competence of nursing students in responding to workplace violence.</p> Aim <p>This study aims to investigate the prevalence of workplace violence in hospitals and the management competence of workplace violence among nursing students, and explore the key factors related to their competence in managing violence.</p> Methods <p>A multi-center cross-sectional survey was conducted between September and December 2024, involving 455 nursing students from five tertiary hospitals in Sichuan and Guizhou provinces of China. The research employed several tools, including a general information questionnaire, the Workplace Violence Scale (WVS), the Management of Workplace Violence Competence Scale (MWVCS), the Organizational Climate Scale, and a Chinese version of the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman correlation analysis were performed using SPSS 26.0. Additionally, random forest models and LASSO regression were employed to identify key variables and to construct multiple linear regression models using RStudio.</p> Results <p>40.9% (<i>n</i> = 186) of nursing students experienced workplace violence. The average competence score (150.01 ± 19.65) exceeded the midpoint of the scale. Five key factors (organizational climate, psychological resilience, training experience, training willingness, and educational level) were identified as predictors and accounted for 47.9% of the variance in competence scores.</p> Conclusion <p>A positive organizational climate and psychological resilience are related to the high competence to manage workplace violence, and it is necessary to incorporate them into workplace violence prevention training.</p>