Objective To explore the effect of KANO model nursing on vision-related quality of life and negative emotions in ophthalmic surgery patients. Methods A total of 48 ophthalmic surgery patients admitted to the Department of Ophthalmology of our hospital from March 2023 to December 2024 were selected as the research subjects. According to the random number table method, they were divided into the control group and the observation group, with 24 patients in each group. The control group received conventional nursing, and the observation group received KANO model nursing. The vision-related quality of life, negative emotions, nursing satisfaction and complications were compared between the two groups. Results After nursing, the scores of total vision, ocular discomfort, vision-related social activities, color vision and vision-related mental health in the two groups were higher than those before nursing, and those in the observation group were higher than those in the control group (P <0.05). After nursing, the scores of SAS and SDS in the observation group were lower than those in the control group (P <0.05). The nursing satisfaction in the observation group was 95.83%, which was higher than 75.00% in the control group (P <0.05). The incidence of complications in the observation group (8.33%) was lower than that in the control group (33.33%) (P <0.05). Conclusion The application of KANO model nursing for ophthalmic surgery patients can improve their visionrelated quality of life, alleviate negative emotions, enhance nursing satisfaction, and reduce the incidence of complications.