Introduction: The patient who is referred to a medical center for the physical or mental injuries has legal and official rights. With due attention to the increasing knowledge of patients about their rights and also their needs and expectations from medical centers, it is necessary that all members involved in of caring of patient, including hospital managers, be aware of patient rights. This study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge of administrators in Tehran governmental hospitals about patients' rights (2004). 

Methods: This was a descriptive analytical study using cross-sectional method. Subjects were all administrators of governmental hospitals in Tehran (n=46). Data were collected by a 36 items questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS. Fisher and ?2 testes. Results: Our findings showed that 34.5% the administrators had good knowledge, 48.5% had intermediate and 17% had poor knowledge about patients' rights. Also level of knowledge of hospital's administrators was considered in 5 fields of patient rights: access to medical services, informed consent, individual freedom, awareness, and privacy. Educational degree, major of study and trained in managerial courses was three effective factors on knowledge of Tehran governmental hospital administrator about patient rights. 

Conclusion: All in all 65.5% the administrators did not have good knowledge level about patients rights and due to knowledge is the base for functionality, therefore it could be predictable that performance of hospital administrators about patient rights rooted in confronting hospital administrators their knowledge level with the rise in the patient's awareness of their rights. This should cause major challenges there for a training courses about this subject must be held for hospitals administrators. For hospital administrators, therefore, the need to improve the administrators' knowledge concerning the issue would deem essential and the necessity of training the administrators to meet those challenges seems inevitable, therefore polices should geared towards those needs.