Background: Presenting educational and communicational programs for patients is considered to be one of the most significant executive roles of hospitals. Studying the status of patients' training services, identifying the barriers, and the organizational factors that affect these in the hospitals affiliated to the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) was the aim of this study. Method: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The participants were 441 patients, 200 physicians, 185 nurses, and 70 supervisors as well as the managers of the MUMS hospitals during the year 2008. Data were gathered using questionnaires and interviews. SPSS software (version 2), and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Results: Only 42% of patients received the necessary training and 94% of them were not satisfied with the amount of training received (which was less than 5 min in 83.3% of cases) or with the content (i.e. mainly related to the method of treating the disease). Of the physicians, 79.4% considered lack of time to be the most important barrier to patient' training and 72% of the hospital managers ruled out the possibility of role play training by nurses under current conditions. Conclusions: Underestimating the role of nurses in patient education by the patients themselves and barriers such as high workload, lack of suitable space, lack of appropriate educational materials, and lack of emphasis by managers, were the most influential factors in terms of patient training. Therefore, reviewing the job description for staff, developing retraining programs for medical staff, boosting educational facilities and encouraging the provision of patient training as part of current hospital services could have an influence on promoting staff capability in the patient education process.

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