OBJECTIVE： To provide reference for further developing the use of national essential medicine system and formulating the plan for essential medicine that is consistent with the local situation. METHODS： A questionnaire survey was conducted on site to collect the 1 800 medical staffs chosen from 35 community health service institutions in Xinjiang with multi-stage stratified random cluster sampling to investigate the cognition to the national essential medicine， and it was statistically analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software. RESULTS： Totally 1 800 questionnaires were sent out and 1 642 were effective received with effective recovery of 91.2％. 26.5％ acquired such specialized knowledge through professional training， and 50.0％ by books and Internet； 62.4％ did never participated in training. Only 20.2％ shared it for patients. The average score of recognition for the system was （6.09±2.86） scores， which was related to age， education， profession， work experience and the title （P＜0.01）. 75.2％ supported this system. CONCLUSIONS： The basic medical staff just have some know of the concept of national essential medicine， but the understanding is still low. It is suggested to improve the cognition level by seminars and continuing training to strengthen reliability of all ethnic groups on essential medicine， change their bad medication habits， popularize common sense of rational drug use and form a good atmosphere for the implementation of the national essential medicine system in the whole society.