Objective To investigate the mental health status of retired veterans in a hospital，analyze the causes and influencing factors of bad psychological status，and to propose a series of effective countermeasures. Methods A total of 380 retired cadres who lived in a certain hospital in Beijing from August 2015 to April 2016 were studied. The mental health status of these patients were tested by SCL-90 and compared according to different age and diseases status. Results There were various psychological problems of retiredveteran cadres in hospital. The retired cadres in elderly group showed significantly higher subscores of soma-tization，force，psychosis and and lower subscores of interpersonal relationship and paranoid ideation than norms (P＜0.05). Except for paranoid ideation and phobia factors，there were significant differences between the elderly and middle-aged group (P＜0.05) . There were significant differences in phobia factor and somatization factor between out-side hospitalized patients and non-hospitalized patients in elderly group (P＜0.05) . Conclusions The retired vet-eran cadres in hospital have different degrees of psychological problems. Their mental health is related to age and illness. Therefore retired cadres need psychological diagnosis and corresponding treatment.