The purpose of this study was to identify nursing diagnoses of patients in the intra-operative period of cardiac surgery. One instrument was elaborated and validated for data collection. Such instrument was organized according to The Theory of Basic Human Needs. Seventeen adult patients in the intra-operative period of cardiac surgery were evaluated, of whom 09 were males and 08 were females with the average of 58 years old. Following data collection, the nursing diagnoses were identified based on NANDA's Taxonomy I. The nursing diagnoses identified with a higher frequency than 50% were: Risk for infection (100%), Risk for fluid volume imbalance (100%), Impaired gas exchange (100%), Risk for aspiration (100%), Altered protection (100%), Impaired skin integrity (100%), Risk for peripheral neurovascular dysfunction (100%), Risk for perioperative positioning injury (100%) and Risk for altered body temperature (94.1%). It was identified a predominance of the diagnoses related to psychobiological needs.