The policy of family visits to patients admitted to the intensive care unit has been liberalized in recent years. This change has been progressive in our unit and family members now spend long periods of time with patients. An analysis was made of the beliefs, opinions and attitudes of nurses toward family visits and the relation between the beliefs of nurses and their attitude toward the effect of an open visiting policy on patients, family members and nurses. A descriptive correlation study was carried out in the Polyvalent Intensive Care Unit. The sample included 46 nurses who completed a self-administered, anonymous questionnaire. This questionnaire contained a Likert type scale analyzing the opinions of nurses regarding the effect of visits and a differential semantic scale analyzing nurses' attitudes toward visits by family members. The opinion that visits had a positive effect achieved a mean value of 3.001 on a scale with a maximum value of 4. The score obtained on the scale of attitudes toward an open visiting policy was 6.005, with a maximum value of 7. The correlation between opinions and attitudes was significant and positive (r = 0.523, p > 0.0001). Comparison of sociodemographic and other variables disclosed no statistically significant differences, except for the variables attitude and having children (t = -2.254, p = 0.03), which obtained a higher score. It is concluded that the opinions of nurses regarding the positive effect of open visits depended on their attitudes. For the most part, they were satisfied with the current visiting policy.