The present study aims at the indentification and analysis of the criteria adopted by nurses in forecasting the need for suture threads in Surgical Center Unit provisioning, according to the public or private nature of the hospital institution. Nurses are the responsible for the forecast, provision, organization and control of the materials in their work units. Surgical suture threads are considered as permanently needed non-reusable materials, daily consumed in surgeries and therefore part and parcel of the hospital programming logic. The Surgical Center Unit nurse interacts with the administration and with the surgeon, the former purchases the material and the later is its final user. Thus, nurses need to be acquainted with the materials in view, their applications and also the processes to which they are submitted in the institution. Notwithstanding, we have observed that surgical suture threads are rarely approached to, as a theme in nursing events, and that the bibliography concerning them is scarce. The data analyzed were collected by means of structured interviews in 74 São Paulo city hospitals which agreed to participate and filled out certain requirements. Most of them (68%) are middle-sized private institutions, counting with a general Surgical Center Unit that realizes up to 500 anesthetic-surgical procedures a mounth, the threads being acquired by direct contract with suppliers. The majority of the nurses that participated in this research have been graduated for 5 years (84%) and have concluded a post-graduation course (78%), 51% of them are in charge of the respective Unit of Surgical Center for 2 to 5 years and approximately half of them are members of specialist's society, such as the SOBECC (Sociedade Brasileira de Enfermeiros em Centro Cirúrgico, Brazilian Surgical Center Nursing Society). The most interesting aspects for nurses are those related to the application / indication of the threads, characteristics of each thread type and substitution criteria. Almost all the nurses (96%) declared to have acquired knowledge on threads in daily practice. Regarding the threads properly, 64% of them are standardized by surgeon's request, 40% are chosen in the moment of the surgery, while 32% are made available in kits divided by specialty. In the hospital, 46% are acquired from the supplier - private hospitals - 32% through public bid - public hospitals. The stock is restored by established quotes in 58% of the hospitals, a fact related to the private nature of the institutions. In the public hospitals the provision prevails through counting the stock at pre-established times, followed by replacement (38%). The variety of threads differs with the nature of the institution, with a larger variety in the private and an inconstant one in the public hospitals, significant at the level of 5%. By describing the main concepts related with surgical suture threads as well as the forecasting and provisioning characteristics involved, we hope to contribute toward making surgical suture threads available, one of the Surgical Center nurses several attributions.