The purpose of this study was to develop a program to increase self-compassion among nursing students and to determine its effectiveness in preventing depression. The study population consisted of 82 nursing students affiliated with a general hospital who agreed to participate in the study, 67 of whom provided valid responses before and after the program intervention. The depression scale was used as the outcome measure, with self-compassion and the subfactors of rumination, facing the fact and negative introspection, as its covariates. Comparing the means of each variable before and after the implementation of this program, only self-confession showed a significant difference. In addition, analysis of variance in a mixed design was performed on the results of each effect measure obtained before and after implementation for each high and low negative introspection group, and the results showed that in the high negative introspection group, self-compassion was significantly improved with a significant interaction from pre- to post-implementation, but there was no reduction in depression. Based on these results, the effectiveness of this program in increasing self-compassion among nursing students and the usefulness of self-compassion for negative introspection associated with depression were discussed, as well as future challenges.