Aim of the study: Identification of factors which determine effective communication between a doctor and a patient. Development of a tool for the evaluation of doctors’ skills of breaking bad news to patients’ relatives. Material and methods: The study was conducted with the survey method, and covered a group of 94 doctors of medicine from three hospitals in the Małopolska region in Poland. The Breaking Bad News Skills questionnaire, developed by Wioletta Szwed-Łopata and Jakub Lickiewicz, describes a doctor’s behaviour in contact with a patient’s family. Results: Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to establish the factor structure of Breaking Bad News Skills questionnaire. The scree plot was used prior to determining the number of factors. Internal consistency was evaluated with Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure, which should be above 0.6, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity. The factor analysis identified five factors referring to the most characteristic types of doctors’ behaviour. These are: Communication (COM), Emotional Barriers (EMO), Partnership (PAR), Support (SUP) as well as Empathy and Compassion (EMP). The first of the constructed factors (8 items) focuses on statements concerning a doctor’s communication with a patient (COM), while the second factor (8 items) pertains to statements connected with the emotional context of breaking bad news by the physician (EMO). Next factor (5 items) includes statements about partnership (PAR). The fourth factor (5 items) concerns the ability to build a supportive environment (SUP). The last factor (8 items) comprises statements concerning partnership, refers to building a supportive environment and the doctor’ s empathy and compassion (SUP). Conclusions: Results of the Breaking Bad News Skills tool analyses indicate that it should be recommended for further scientific research and used in many areas of psychological and social practice.