The present study aimed at identifying the motivational profile of nurses who work in a public general hospital as well as at finding out the motivations that lead nurse in their work and correlating attitudes and beliefs verified in the responses of the subjects to work and their motivations. Data were collected through three instruments, two of them were scales of Likert type (MOSE e ACTRA) and one questionnaire with data to characterize the sample that was formed by 184 nurses. Results enabled the author to delineate a motivational profile based on the three social motivations and conclude that the majority of nurses studied are working in order to overcome the underdevelopment.