The purpose of this study was to identify the degree of importance that nurses and geriatric patients attribute to nursing interventions in technical and expressive areas, as well as to compare the opinions obtained from the nurses and patients studied. The results indicated that geriatric patients attributed higher degree of importance to nursing interventions in the technical area than did the nurses. In the expressive area there was no significant difference between the two groups, except for the question about the company of relatives or friends during hospitalization.