“Care” can be characterized as being the nursing “essence”, it involves recuperation and health promotion through attitudes that go far beyond providing assistance, they involve care, support, zeal and patience, mainly in hospital environment during perioperative period. This study aims to show patients` perception about nursing care in perioperative period, based on Jean Watson`s theory in a hospital in the West region of Santa Catarina. Explanatory and descriptive method with qualitative approach was used on this research and a semistructured interview with guiding questions was applied. Eight patients in perioperative period, respecting inclusion and exclusion criteria, participated on this research. Data was collected in the second semester of 2016, between months of September and October, and Bardin method was used to analyze this data. From the analysis, three chapters were created with the most frequent themes from the interview. The results obtained show that patients realize nursing care in a satisfactory way during perioperative period, however it`s hard for them to distinguish the professional nurse from the nurse technician, confusing their respective actions, but they notice care, in general, in a positive way.