History and Objectives: Communication skills between doctors and patients are very important in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. In order to determine the attitude and communication skills of doctors towards their patients the present study was carried out in Shiraz in 1998. Communication skills were assessed on the basis of patients and researchers interpretation of such skills and attitude of doctors towards training and application of communicational skills of doctors with their patients.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was carried out on doctors. Five percent of doctors were selected randomly. From every private clinic, 3-5 patients were selected. Communication skills were assessed on the basis of sis typical behavior of doctors from point of view of patients and researchers. Attitudes of doctors were assessed by 19 Licret. Communication skills were classified as poor, average and good and attitude were classified as positive and negative.

Results: Patients reported 12% and 60% of doctors poor and good communicational skills. With increasing age, education, patient’s expectation of communicational skills increased. Female doctors and general practitioners displayed better communicational skills compare to the specialists. Training and application of communicational skills were states as useful among 65% of doctors this attitude was similar among male and female doctors regardless of their specialty. However, older doctors and those with greater number of working years had put greater emphasis on the training and its application.

Conclusion: Communication skills between doctors and their patients are low. Due to its importance, it is subjected that continuing training should be conducted one regular basis.