This study aimed to verify what graduate and postgraduate students believe about the importance of communicative competence in health education. This is a descriptive exploratory study with data collection through individual questionnaires that were developed at Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA) (Porto Alegre, Brazil). The sample was composed of 54 graduate students from the physical therapy and biomedicine departments and 26 postgraduate students who were at the Masters or PhD level in this Institution. Of the graduate students, 46 (85%) students were women with mean age of 22.7 years old (and a standard deviation of ± 3.07 years). Of these, 62.9% of students reported excessive concern with the act of public speech and 74% of students reported not having training in public speaking or in oral and gestural expressiveness. Speech production (18.5%), speech rate and rhythm (18.5%), and interaction with the public (16.6%) are the aspects that students reported having the most difficulty with. Among the postgraduate students, 23 (88,4%) students were women with mean age of 27.2 years old (the DP was ±3.62 years). Of these, 61.5% students reported not having training in public speaking or in oral and gestural expressiveness, and 84.6% of students intend to follow the field of teaching in higher education. The interaction with the public (19.2%), speech rate and rhythm (15.3%), and oral expression without slangs (15.3%) were the aspects that caused the most difficulty. Most students reported difficulties and lack of training. These difficulties can be remediated at the university level with the inclusion of activities that promote communicative competence. The lack of studies in this area highlight the importance of developing research focusing on this topic.