Objective We aimed to investigate the actual situation of exit site care in patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) and to further determine the factors influencing the compliance with exit site care. Methods A total of 210 clinically stable PD patients were enrolled in this study. A self-designed questionnaire was applied to explore patient’s exit site care and the compliance with exit site care. The demographic and biochemistry data were also recorded. Results A total of 87 in the 210 patients performed exit site care independently. The compliance with routine exit site observation was significantly worse compared to other aspects (P＜0.001). Diabetes was the independent predictor for poor compliance with routine exit site observation after adjusted for age, gender, hemoglobin, serum albumin, the location and direction of exit site by using logistic multivariate regression analysis (p=0.048). Diabetic PD patients were prone to be elder, poor eye-sighted and malnourished (p＜0.05~0.001). They also tended to need assistants to do exit site care compared to non-diabetic PD patients (p＜0.001). Conclusion The training of patients needs to be strengthened in the aspect of self-care and routine exit site observation. PD patients, especially diabetic PD patients as well as their fellows or care providers should be involved in the training for exit site care.