Abstract: As a special group of elder people, the empty nest elderly’s mental health has attracted great attention from the domestic and foreign researchers, and has gradually become a hot issue. It is found that in mental health research literature on empty nest elderly that the academic definition of empty nest elderly is not unified. Viewed from the present situation of empty nest elderly's mental health status point of view, the empty nest syndrome is the main embodiment of physical and mental symptoms, influenced by social support, gender, marital status, income and other socio-demographic factors. Although there are some achievements in the field of the research on empty nest elderly’s mental health research, some problems still remain to be solved. Future researches should focus on giving a unified definition of the empty nest elderly, improving research methods, exploring internal factors, and strengthening cross-cultural comparison and using for reference.

Key words: empty nest elderly, mental health, empty nest syndrome